Patron: Hi. I'm looking for books about heart attacks. I did a subject browse, but nothing came up. I can't believe you don't have any books about heart attacks!

Librarian: We probably do have books about heart attacks. You said you did a subject browse for the words "heart attack"?

Patron: Yes. That's the subject I want.

Librarian: We do have books about heart attack, but they're not categorized by that subject heading.

Patron: Why?

Librarian: The subject heading for heart attack is actually myocardial infarction. As you can see, when I do a subject browse for myocardial infarction, the catalog returns a list with numerous headings and subdivisions, such as popular works, prevention, and psychological aspects, for myocardial infarction so you can better pinpoint the books you want. When I click on Myocardial infarction -- Popular works, the record is a book about heart attacks.

Patron: Why doesn't the computer just use heart attack?

Librarian: Subject headings are part of what we call a controlled vocabulary. The catalog requires words from an official list so librarians don't use multiple variations of words and phrases in the catalog. This ensures that similar books are listed together under the proper subject heading. Myocardial infarction is a tough one; it's not intuitive. Often, if you enter a term or phrase that's not part of the controlled vocabulary, the catalog will tell you to use another term. When you browse for Revolutionary War, the catalog tells you to see "United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783."

Patron: When I searched for heart attack, it didn't tell me to see myocardial infarction. What should I do if something like that happens again?

Librarian: You can try a subject keyword search. The browse indexes are alphabetical, so if you invert the words in the subject, you won't find them by browsing, but you will find them in a keyword search. The subject keyword search looks for each word you enter in all of the subject headings. Many books have more than one. If that doesn't work, you can do a general keyword search, which will look for your words in all of the searchable fields--title, author, subject, series, notes.... You could get a lot of results. Once you find a relevant book, click on one of its subject headings to find more. You can see here that the subject headings are on the left side of the screen in a box that reads "item information."

Patron: So, why should I even bother with subject browsing?

Librarian: When you subject browse, you'll find books that pertain to your topic. You won't have to sift through records that simply include the word you entered. Plus, you get a list that includes all of the subdivisions. If I have a general idea of the subject, I try subject browse first.

You can also do subject searches in some of the EBSCO Databases. Clicking on the word "subjects" or "thesaurus" (depending on the database) in the green bar at the top of the page will give you a searchable, alphabetical list of subjects used in the database. Searching for subjects rather than keywords is especially helpful in a database. If you enter a word as a keyword, the database can return hundreds of irrelevant results. Although a keyword appears in a record, the article might not be about that topic. This is often the case when you enter common words or words with various meanings. If you cannot find an article on your subject, you can use the strategy I just mentioned. Find an article that is relevant and search its subjects.

Patron: Ok. Thank you for your help.

Librarian: You're welcome. Let me know if you need more help.