In the catalog, if you find a book that looks good, scroll to the bottom of the record. You'll see subject terms that you can click to get more material on that particular subject. You can click on the beginning part of all. The hyphens in the term delineate different parts of the term.
AND | OR | NOT
These are boolean operators that allow you to add, combine or exclude terms.
AND: Results must contain both things. Narrows results.
OR: Results can contain one or the other. Broadens results.
NOT: Results should not contain these terms. Excludes results.
The searching techniques below will help you to find things faster and rethink what you might be looking for.
Coming up with keywords to enter into databases can seem easy — you use Google every day after all — but with library databases you often have to be more strategic about your vocabulary. While your research question might be quite specific, you don't want to be too broad or too specific with your keywords.
Things to consider when developing keywords:
One of the best ways to find the scholarly conversation is to see who others are citing and track down those articles. Look at bibliographies. Look at who the Wikipedia page is citing. Then check the catalog to see if we have that journal or book.
