Library and Internet Skills

Quick tips: Titles, Authors, and Subjects in the library catalogue

Titles

Leave out 'the' at the beginning of the title:

• Leave out 'a', 'the', 'le', 'la',  'el', 'die', and other articles at the beginning of a title.
• Just enter the first few words.
• Capitalization and punctuation are not necessary, except hyphens.

Examples

  Authors

Put the surname first.

• Use for authors, editors, organizations, painters, musicians, etc.
• Enter the author's surname first, followed by first initial or name (no comma)
• Capitalization and punctuation are not necessary, except hyphens.
• For hyphenated names, either keep the hyphen, or leave a blank space.
• For organizations, leave off 'the' and other articles at the beginning of the name.
• For long organizational names, enter only the first few words.

Examples

Subjects

There are two approaches to subject searching using the library catalogue: the Subject search and Keyword search.

When you are looking for books on a topic, you can use two different approaches: subject searching or keyword searching.

Subject Searching

Every book in the library is given at least one Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH). Subject headings ensure that all items on the same topic can be found using the same set of search terms.

A complete list of Library of Congress Subject Headings can be found in there Reference Section of every library in the University of Toronto Library System

Advantages of LCSH: Collects all works on a topic under the same search terms. LCSH also ensure that topics with similar names can be separated from each other.

For example, to keep the books on Mars the planet distinct from the books on the Roman god Mars the subject headings are:

• Mars (Planet)
• Mars (Roman Deity)

Disadvantages: You must know the correct Subject Heading in order to find anything.  Some subject headings are obvious, while others are more cryptic.

For example, the books on hovercrafts are filed under "ground effect machines."

Example:

blacks canada history

If you do not know the LCSH(s) for your topic, use keyword searching to locate an item on your topic, view the full record, and note the subject heading(s) assigned to it. Then perform a subject search. Also see some typical examples below.

If you don't find anything, do not give up! You could be using the wrong heading. Try a keyword search.

Examples

Keyword Searching (Using the "contains" feature)

Subject Keyword searching allows you to combine elements of the author's name, the title and the subject headings into a single search. This is particularly useful if your topic is interdisciplinary, the book you are looking for was written by multiple authors or you are unsure of the proper subject heading to use.  You can also combine your search vocabulary using Boolean search techniques and field searching.

Advantage: Flexible. Allows you to combine ideas and develop sophisticated strategies.

Disadvantage: Can be less focused. You may find many irrelevant items. Computer response time may be slow. Your efficiency with keyword searching will improve as you master more advanced techniques.

How to:

1. Choose your keywords: Keywords are exactly what they sound like, 'key' or 'fundamental' words that represent your topic.
2. Combine them in a search strategy
   1. Start by analyzing your topic and dividing it into separate concepts.
   2. Brainstorm keywords that represent those concepts. Keywords could be synonyms, different forms of the word, more general or more specific words, or related words.

Example topic:

The effect of television violence on children.

2) Combining Keywords in a Search Strategy

and

Use 'and' to combine different concepts.  Example: children and television and violence (see more examples)

or

Use 'or' to combine different words for the same concept.

Example: media or television

$ (Dollar Sign)

Use a question mark to get different endings of the same word.

Example: child$(see more examples) (sometimes computer response time may be very slow when you use a question mark. Avoid using it on very common words like Canada.)

? (Question Mark)

Use the question mark when you are unsure of the spelling of a word.

Examples: Colo?r will find color and colour. This allows you to adjust your search for variations in spelling. M?cDonald (MacDonald, McDonald), Wom?n (Woman, Women) and Encylop?edia (Encyclopedia, Encyclopaedia) are other examples of words that may benefit from use of the question mark.

Use brackets to combine different techniques.

Example: child$ and (media or television) and violen?

Field searching

When you search by keyword, you are searching many different fields of the book record, ie., the author, title, subject. Field searching allows you to tell the catalogue where to look for each word.

Example: Atwood{au} and tale{ti} will find all of the books by Atwood with the word "tale" in the title.

The most common field codes are

{au}

author

{ti}

title

{su}

subject

{pbyr}

year of publication

{pbna}

name of publisher

Example: dickens{au} and twist{ti} and Book Collectors League{pbna} and 1865{pbyr} will find the edition of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist that was published by the Book Collectors League in 1895

More keyword searching tips

• Your keywords can be in any order. It doesn't matter which comes first.
• Please note that keyword searching works most effectively when you are more specific about your topic. A keyword search using very general words like 'history canada' would be very slow, and find thousands of items that might not be very useful. History Canada War 1812 is an example of a more precise keyword search.
• You can use any number of keywords in your search, within reason! The more keywords you add, the more it narrows down your search, and focuses on the topic.

On the other hand, if you add too many, you will end up with very few, or no titles.

Examples:

• Experiment! The secret to good keyword searching is trying out different strategies, learning from your successes and your mistakes, and further refining your search.
• Go to the Related Search section for one suggested method of expanding your search.  More Help

Hands-on Classes

Classes are offered every term on how to use the library catalogue to find books: Instruction Schedules

This page was last updated . Your comments and queries are welcomed.
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