Find Print Books and E-Books in the Library Catalog
Finding Books with Keywords
As you begin to look for books on your topic, you want to put the keywords you've brainstormed into to catalog's search box. If you were interested in exploring how attitudes towards tattoos and other body art have evolved in America, you could start out by search "tattoo AND America."
Finding Books with Subject Headings
One relevant book can lead you to others through the book's subject headings. A subject heading is a standardized phrase that describes the main themes of the book. These are different from the keyword search because a librarian has identified that the book is mainly about these subjects. With a keyword search, your search word just showed up somewhere in the book's record, but might not be a major subject of the book. If you find a subject heading that describes your topic really well, you can use it to find relevant sources faster.
Subject headings are hyperlinked in the catalog. If you click on a subject heading, the catalog will do a new search and return a list of books with that subject heading.
IIn your list of results, click on the book title. Scroll down to "Subjects" and you'll see the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
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