Dance Subject Guide

Keywords are the critical words used to describe your topic in the literature.  For example:  organic farming Japan.  Notice -- the less important words like:  an, in, the, of  are left out of the statement.  Every word you ask for has to be present in the item you're retreiving, so just use the words you really need.

Subject links are provided by the Library of Congress cataloging librarians to describe your topic consistently.  For example, materials with information about the Lindy Hop may be contained in books with a more general heading like "Ballroom Dancing."

So, your best searching technique in library catalogs would be to:

1. Search using keywords to find at least one item of interest
2. Use the subject links at the bottom of the screen to find other items the Library of Congress librarians deemed to be about your topic even if the exact words weren't used in the title

When you use a huge catalog like World Cat, it's good to search using subject terms you identified in Catalyst rather than by keyword.