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Search Techniques

Subject Heading Searching

How it works

Subject headings are official terms used to precisely describe the content of books, articles, videos, or other materials and publications. Librarians, indexers, or sometimes the authors themselves assign the terms by reviewing the content of the item and selecting appropriate terms from an official, standardized list. This list of subject headings is generally called a thesaurus. Because subject headings can be selected only from a standardized or "controlled" list, searching a database by using official subject headings is also known as controlled vocabulary searching.

One of the most commonly used subject headings lists is maintained by the Library of Congress for use in cataloging the materials added to its collections. Because of the depth and authority of this list, it is also used by most academic and public libraries in the United States for their own library catalogs. This list, Library of Congress Subject Headings, is very detailed and fills five volumes; copies are usually available for consultation at the Reference Desk.

Some databases use other lists of controlled vocabulary, developed to meet the specialized needs of researchers in a particular discipline. Examples include the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, for use in the ERIC education database, the Thesaurus of Sociological Indexing Terms, for use in the Sociological Abstracts database, or Medical Subject Headings, used by medical libraries.

Often, the format and language used in subject terms is different from natural language. Below are several examples from each of the thesauri mentioned above:

Thesaurus, controlled vocabulary, or subject heading lists
Keyword
Subject headings
Try It:

Library of Congress Subject Headings (for general use in library catalogs) anorexia exercise addiction Anorexia nervosa CONSORT

Thesaurus of Psychological Descriptors (??) ADHD Attention Deficit Disorders hyperactivity clinical diagnosis ERIC

Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (education) infant infants infants animal newborn infants PsychInfo

Medical Subject Headings (medicine) memory deficit memory disorders memory MedLine

Thesaurus, controlled vocabulary, or subject heading lists	Keyword	Subject headings	Try It:
Library of Congress Subject Headings (for general use in library catalogs)	anorexia	exercise addiction Anorexia nervosa	CONSORT
Thesaurus of Psychological Descriptors (??)	ADHD	Attention Deficit Disorders hyperactivity clinical diagnosis	ERIC
Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (education)	infant	infants infants animal newborn infants	PsychInfo
Medical Subject Headings (medicine)	memory deficit	memory disorders memory	MedLine

Advantages of subject heading searching

There are many advantages to seaching with subject headings.

you can locate relevant materials on your topic, even if different authors have used very different terminology in their works
conducting one subject heading search is more efficient than doing multiple keyword searches using a variety of terms
if the terminology used to describe a topic has changed over time, both older and newer works can be brought together under one heading
subject heading lists often use a logical structure, with broader, narrower, and related terms; they may also incorporate the use of sub-headings; these features can help you identify other useful subject headings for your topic, as well as focus your research on specific concepts