These are the official Library of Congress Subject Headings that you can use for many of your searches in our databases. You would find subject headings such as these by browsing through the Library of Congress Subject Headings books or browsing the "Catalog Record" of every title found in our Library Catalog.
EXAMPLES
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Asian Americans Pacific Islanders Bangladeshi Americans Chinese Americans Drukpa East Indian Americans* Filipino Americans Guamanians Hawaiians Hmong Americans Indonesian Americans Japanese Americans Korean Americans Laotian Americans Malaysians Pakistani Americans Thai Americans Tibetans Vietnamese Americans |
History Social Conditions Culture and Customs Ethnic Identity Personal Narratives Assimilation
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Buddhism Hinduism Islam Christianity |
United States California San Francisco Hayward (Calif.) East Bay (Calif.) Angel Island |
Search Example: Subject terms are often used in databases such as this article when searching for Natural Disasters
While not official subject headings, these keywords can be very fruitful for your research. Try to also think of other terms such as these. Keyword searches look at all the information in the book or article record including title, author, abstract, table of contents, etc. It always helps to think of synonyms, as the way one person would describe something is not the same way another would.
Disaster Preparedness
Gay Marriage
Internet Privacy
Using Boolean operators (AND, OR, or NOT), in keyword searching can yield more relevant results. Databases will interpret a string of keywords in a basic search as a phrase instead of combing the keywords. Advanced keyword searching will provide Boolean operators to combine your search terms.
Using the correct words to search will help you find relevant information. Different authors and search tools use different words to describe the same concepts, so it is useful to have a list of similar and related terms in your arsenal when you set out to search for relevant information. The process of creating these alternative terms is called brainstorming terms or concept mapping.
EXAMPLE
Earthquakes AND California
If for some reason, you are getting results you do NOT want (say for example you want to find only articles on communication in opposite sex marriages) try a NOT search. Librarians caution that NOT searches often also weed out articles that may have been relevant for you. So only perform such searches if you have LOTS of results (say over ten that are in full text format):
EXAMPLE
Natural Disasters NOT Earthquakes
