Creating More Powerful Searches

Some questions to get started with keywords and subjects for searching include:

• What is the book about?
• What does it contain?
• Who is the audience?
• Who is the book about?
• Why was it written?
• What time period does it cover?

What is keyword searching?

Keywords are any words you can come up with as you think about your topic. They can be typed into the search box using your usual, every day language. But they may not provide an exact match for your topic. A keyword search in Discovery searches the title, contents and pretty much anywhere else in the metadata for the resource, and your searches could find too many or even completely irrelevant resources. For example, if you search for "modern french literature," the results will include Optiques: The Science of the Eye and the Birth of French Fiction (which is about vision in literature) and The Entrapments of Form: Cruely and Modern Literature (about cruelty). You will have to wade through many resources to sort through and find what you need. You'll want a way to help you zero in on what you need.

A keyword search can be the first step on the way to finding subject headings and getting more relevant results.

What is subject searching?

A subject search is more specific than a keyword search. Subjects come from a controlled vocabulary, which mean that they use standardized terms, maintained by a central body. UMass Libraries use the Library of Congress Subject Headings, which are a specific dictionary of subject terms controlled and maintained by the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. If you look at one of your results from your search for "modern french literature," you'll find a few hyperlinked terms that seem to be repeated in the records for each resource. You can see that one of the standardized strings of terms you might search for is "French literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism." Clicking on that string will take you to more accurate results.

Library of Congress Subject Headings are used by most academic libraries across the entire United States, and are even used by many libraries throughout the world. This means you can perform the same search at many different libraries and always use the same subject terms!

Combining forces for the best results

Use keywords and subjects together! There are two ways that Discovery performs subject searches, and each with give you slightly different, but more accurate results.

• Start your search with keywords
• Look through your results and focus on the most relevant record(s), noticing those hyperlinked subject headings
•  Choose the most applicable subject headings and do one of two things:
  • Just click on the hyperlinked subject term or string and see where it takes you! This allows you to search Discovery with an exact match of that term or phrase.
  • Write down your favorite subject terms and perform a second search in Discovery by going back to the top of the results page. Type your subject term into the top search box. Go to the dropdown next to the search box and select SU Subject terms. This will perform a keyword search of the subject terms you chose.

In this close up example of our search for "modern french literature," you can see the list of subject terms in a resource you like. Let's click on the link for "French literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism" to narrow your search.

You'll see how it changes your search once you click on the link.

This kind of search allows you to see more relevant results on your topic!