Identifying Subject Headings in the Fenwick Online Catalog

If you can identify a relevant book on your topic, look at its record in the online library catalog and see what Library of Congress Subject Headings are listed for it. Here is the screen for one of the sources turned up by a keyword search on "detective" in the Fenwick Library catalog:

 

Note the Library of Congress Subject Headings at the bottom of the screen. Click on any of them to be taken to other books in the Fenwick collection with the same subject heading. The final one suggests that "private investigators" might be a useful synonym for "detective" in further searches.

Bound volumes containing complete indexes of Library of Congress Subject headings are also kept in the Reference areas of Fenwick and the Johnson Center libraries.

You can also search by typing a subject heading into the "find" box and selecting "subject" in the "find results in" menu. In the results for such searches, online catalogs sometimes list "see also" references that can lead you to alternative terminology for your subject.

Here you are using "utopias" as your keyword but selecting "subject" as the only field in which to "find results."

 

The subject search above will take you to a list of relevant subject headings, including alternative subjects under the "see also" designation. Click this link to learn how to use the "see also" feature in the online catalog subject headings.

Click this link to return to Identifying Useful Subject Headings.