THIS GUIDE IS OUT OF DATE. IT WILL BE REVISED AND THE CORRECTIONS POSTED IN THE NEAR FUTURE
Determining Official Subject Headings
Method 1: Perform a keyword search using the terms that come most readily to mind. For example, for find items on Thailand’s participation in the Vietnam War construct a search as follows:
Examine the subject headings of the records you retrieve and construct a new search using the official subject heading:
Note: when performing keyword (k=) searches the order of the terms is unimportant, except when using the adjacent operator (adj), which retrieves the words connected by it as a phrase.
Method 2: Check the Library of Congress Subject Headings (a red 5-volume set located at many of the many of the online terminals in the campus libraries). A reference librarian can assist you in using the Subject Headings.
Geographic Terms
The official subject heading for Southeast Asia is Asia, Southeastern. When performing subject searches, construct the search as:
When performing keyword searching, construct the search as:
Language Delimiters
When you want to limit your search to items in a particular language append the following terms to your search:
For example, to retrieve a list of titles on the Vietnam War in the Vietnamese language, construct a search as follows:
A list of Southeast Asian language codes appears at the end of this guide. Note that the language delimiter can be used only with keyword (k=) searches.
Bibliographies
To find bibliographies on a particular topic or country construct a search using the following form:
For example, to find bibliographies on the Indonesian economy:
Dictionaries
Monolingual dictionaries can be found using the following subject heading:
For example:
To find bilingual dictionaries use the form:
For example, to find dictionaries from the Burmese language to English:
From English to Burmese:
Audio-Visual
When you want to limit your search to videos or other audio visual materials, append the following terms to your search:
For example to find travelogues on Malaysia:
To find all the videos in a particular language, construct a search of the following type:
For example, to find all the Thai-language videos the library owns:
Some Additional Useful Subject Terms (Use these in conjunction with the name of a place and/or topic)
Examples:
Note that in the first instance the order of the terms is unimportant (k=laos politics adj government will retrieve the same titles as k=politics adj government laos). In the second instance (s=) the terms must appear in the order given.
Indexes (to find indexes to periodicals in general or indexes to a specific periodical)
Example:
Abstracts (to find abstracts; that is, short synopses of larger works on a topic or place)
Example:
Directories (for directories of all types: telephone, organizational)
Example:
History
Examples:
history (to retrieve general works on the ethnic groups in a country)
Example:
Economic (to retrieve works on the economy of a place)
Conditions Note: when performing a keyword search use the adjacent operator (adj)
Examples:
Politics and (to find indexes to periodicals in general or indexes to a specific periodical) Government
Examples:
Religion (to retrieve titles on the religions of a country or of a specific ethnic group)
Examples:
<name of language> (for collections of literature in a specific language by more than one literature author)
Examples:
History and (for the history and criticism of literature and art) Criticism
Examples:
Religious Aspects (for works on the religious aspects of a topic)
Examples:
Political Aspects (for works on the political aspects of a topic)
Examples:
Psychological (for works on the psychological aspects of a topic)
Examples:
Environmental (for works on the environmental aspects of a topic) Aspects
Examples:
Description (for general descriptions of a place and travelers’ accounts) and Travel
Examples:
Guidebooks (travel guides)
Example:
