Subject Headings and the Library Catalog
A library’s online catalog will list the institutions book holding and some of it non-book formats such as videos and maps. The title of journals will be found in the library catalog; however, the individual article itself will not appear here. Instead, the catalog will give you a reference to a database that is holding the exact journal you desire if the database contains it. Once you begin your search it is important to use proper subject headings because many issues tend to arise by people not know the proper format to search with. Some words may seem like easiest and most practical use to find your interest, however they can lead you in a completely different direction. In addition, the order in which you list the words will factor into the equation as well. The instance, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of history are two completely different searches. Uniform heading will help aid in searching by linking particular words with words associated with it like death penalty and capital punishment. This is useful because you cannot always remember alternate words to search for your subject of interest. Uniform headings help by finding variant titles for the same subject and variant classification numbers for aspects of the same subject. One problem still occurs with uniform headings, when you search with a word that is not very good for that subject you might be given alternate areas to search that have no value to your research. Therefore, unless you try multiple words or are sure you are using a good strong word for that subject, you could be lead anywhere.
There are four ways to find the right subject headings, two involve using the Library of Congress Subject Heading, and the other two involve using the library’s catalog directly. In the LCSH, follow cross-references to help know what words will help your search and which words will not help. When looking in the LCSH you will see four abbreviations: NT: Narrower term UF: used for BT: broader term and RT: related term. These terms are important ways for cross-referencing codes, but pay particular attention to the NT references. The second important LCSH way of helping ease your search process is looking for narrower terms that are alphabetically adjacent to your starting-point term in the LCHS list. When researching within the library catalog, look for subject tracings on relevant records retrieved by other means. This is the third way of researching and is very good when you begin a search with one strong subject search because from there you will be able to see alternative subjects by the catalog that sometimes is even more useful then your original search was. Finally the last way for finding good subject headings is within the library catalog, browse through all of the subdivisions of any relevant subject heading you find. This is useful because when you search for something you might use a term that is too broad and opens up too much information, but by looking at the subdivisions, you can narrow your search down a ton and probably find things you would have never thought of using as search words.
Researchers and students who need to access this type of information use these tools routinely. Without the guidance of these tools, it would take large amounts of time to find and generalize your searches into the proper direction because it would open too many gates of information and not open enough of the proper ones. Now that I know the four ways of researching, I know that if I have internet access I can just use the library to access the information I need, or just go to the library and use the LCSH to help find and narrow down my research.
Mann, Thomas. The
