Theater 110: Introduction to Theater
Research and Instruction Librarian for Music & Fine Arts
LibKey Nomad
Research and Instruction Librarian for Music & Fine Arts
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!
Useful Search Terms for Theater
Catalyst defaults to running keywords searches, which search for your terms anywhere in the records. This doesn't guarantee all the items in the results list are about your search term, just that the term appears somewhere in the record.
If you want more targeted search results, try running subject searches. These search the subject tags assigned to each item, ensuring that the results are actually about you search term.
To run a subject search, go to advanced search and set the "any field" dropdown menu to "subject." The example below searches for material on Korean drama.
Useful subject search terms for theater include:
- Drama (mostly for theatrical works as pieces of literature)
- Theater (mostly for theatrical works as staged events)
These can be combined with place names, as in the "drama AND Korea" search above.
If you're looking for historical commentary or criticism, add the words history or criticism. Here's a search for material on the history of theater in the USA:
