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Finding Books

Library of Congress Subject Headings


Books, videos, and other materials in library catalogs are assigned official subject headings by the Library of Congress. These subject headings describe an item's content and what it is about, and are useful for focusing research on broader, narrower, or related topics. Look for subject heading links in the library catalog to find more items on the same topic.

For example, the book Dance and the Hollywood Latina has the following LC Subject Headings to describe it:

Subdivisions, or subheadings, are words or phrases which may be added to a subject heading to create a more effective search. Some standard subheadings are:

Abstracts Encyclopedias Research
Bibliography Fiction Sex differences
Biography Handbooks, manuals, etc Social aspects
Case studies History Social life and customs
Diaries In literature Study and teaching
Dictionaries Law and legislation Statistics
Directories Pictorial works

For assistance and other tips on how to construct more efficient searches, ask a reference librarian.

Maintained by: Elizabeth Peterson, emp@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 12/09/2010