SEARCHING CATALOG FOR BOOKS, REPORTS,
ETC.
Ben Amata
Criminal Justice Librarian
Fall 2011
Searching by keyword versus subject
Most people search by keyword. It permits us to look for exactly what we
want. However, we can’t find related terms unless we specify them.
For example: if we search for juvenile, we won’t retrieve the words youth,
teen or teenager, and adolescent or adolescence.
If we are going to search by keywords, we need to add synonyms (related
words) or do multiple searches if we want to be comprehensive.
Our challenge
We don’t know how authors may title or what words they use to describe
their work.
They could use juvenile violence or teen violence or adolescent violence.
We are going to do a search where we are looking for books on female
prisoners.
We retrieved 102 titles
containing the words female
and prisoner
All of these books must
have the words female
and prisoner but note
none of our titles use
female prisoners in their
titles .
Look at this title by
clicking on it.
Notice the synonyms for
prisoner used by this
author: convicts, felons,
criminality.
Also that women is
synonymous for female
The subject terms for
this topic are Women
prisoners and female
offenders
Any book about female
prisoners regardless of
the author’s words will
receive these subjects
Click on this subject
Highlight the subject after the
word prisoners and delete so you
do a subject search on just women
prisoners
Now you have searched
on the subject. Instead
of 102 titles from our
keyword search, we
retrieved 230 titles, over
twice as much
So which is the best way to search?
Depends on what satisfies your request best. It could be a keyword or it
could be a subject.
You can always search by keyword but always examine your subjects and
search on those to see if it retrieves titles not available from just a
keyword search.
As researchers, we want to he comprehensive and make sure we have seen
all that is relevant even if we don’t use everything.
Sometimes we need to use keywords because the topic we are searching for
doesn’t have a good subject.
For example, if we are looking for the idea “broken windows”:
“Broken Windows theory of crime control, argue that the presence of
panhandlers, squeegee men, and people sleeping on the sidewalks creates
such a powerful symbol of disorder and decay that it can encourage others to
commit crime. Only with zero-tolerance policies, which impose penalties for
even the most minor of public-order offenses, do we create a culture and
climate that inhibits criminal activity. In this view, by addressing vagrancy and
homelessness as visible signs of disorder and decay, the health, safety,
security, and viability of entire cities and neighborhoods can be positively
affected.” “Vagrancy and the Homeless” Stephen Pimpare , Crime and Criminal Behavior.
Ed. William J. Chambliss. Key Issues in Crime and Punishment Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Reference, 2011. p255-267.
We retrieved books that contain
something about our topic but the
subjects are general and if we did
subject searches we would retrieve
material that isn’t relevant
Has the terms broken
windows but isn’t
focused on criminal
justice but on land use
To Recap
When searching by keyword, remember to think about synonyms or related
terms.
Examine the SUBJECTS assigned to any record to determine if they might help
provide some terms you haven’t thought of.
Conduct a SUBJECT search to see if it provides other relevant results.
You can always ask for assistance if you’re having problems searching by
contacting the Reference Desk by phone (916 278 5673) or any other of
our services - http://library.csus.edu/content2.asp?pageID=179 (email,
online chat, etc.)
And you can always contact Ben Amata, the criminal justice librarian: 916 278
5672 or email: [email protected]