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- Music 346: Music, Gender, and Sexuality
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Music 346: Music, Gender, and Sexuality
LibKey Nomad
Research and Instruction Librarian for Music & Fine Arts
Subject Searching (Better Than Keyword Searching)
The default Catalyst search is a keyword search, which essential googles the catalog for any records where that term appears. This means you can get long results list with materials that may not be relevant to your project.
A more efficient search is a subject search, which searches the subject tags (aka, subject headings) in a record. These headings are applied only if an item is primarily about that topic.
If you find a resource that seems especially relevant, look at the Subjects in the detailed view. These headings are hyperlinks -- click on them to pull up more resources tagged with that heading. Here are the subject headings applied to the book David Bowie Made Me Gay.
You can also combine these subjects with other search terms -- copy and paste them into an Advanced Search. Be sure to set the dropdown menu to Subject. Here's a search for information about homosexuality and the composer George Frideric Handel. I used "homosexuality and music" as a subject, but added "Handel" as a keyword.
Some useful subject searches for this course include the following. (This is by no means an exhaustive list!)
Catalyst: Books, articles, scores, recordings
Want to find materials in specific formats? There are several ways to tell Catalyst what kind of material you want.
Use the buttons on the top: Make sure you are in the "Advanced Search" module of Catalyst. You can get there by clicking the "Advanced Search" button on the library's homepage. The "Audio/Visual" button along the top tells Catalyst you wants recordings. The "Books" button will search for both books and scores.
Use the Material Type menu: Make sure you are in the "Advanced Search" module of Catalyst. You can get there by clicking the "Advanced Search" button on the library's homepage. On the right is a section headed "Material Type." Click the dropdown menu to select the format you want. You can limit your search to scores, film/visual recordings, or sound recordings. This side menu will default to electronic recordings and videos; if you are looking for physical formats like CDs, use the top buttons instead.
A few more tips:
- Once you are in your results list, use the menu on the left to filter out whether you want physical materials or online materials.
- While Catalyst can be a good place to start your research, not all our online library resources will show up in your results, so be sure to check out the individual databases, too!
- Materials at Carleton may be requested directly from Catalyst and are delivered twice a day Monday through Friday!