Searching by keyword.

Sometimes you may not know the author or the exact title of a book or the Library of Congress Subject headings for your topic. In this case it can help to try a keyword search. Searching in this way is like using a search engine on the Internet. It searches all of the fields at once, including title, subject and notes - and lists all the records that contain that keyword. You may get more records, but they may not be as relevant to your topic.

To search by keyword, click on the HELIN Catalog link on the library’s home page. You will see search boxes that look like this:

You may combine ideas and limit your search using the options on the page. When you hit Submit, you will see a list of records relating to your search:

Keyword searching can be a very effective way of finding the information you need. However there may be additional information on your topic that you may miss because it is listed under a different word. For example, searching for ‘teenager’ will bring up a number of books, but you will miss those that are listed under ‘adolescent’. Subject searching, which we'll see soon, will help address this.

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