Understanding Library Subject Headings: Home

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) uses what is called controlled vocabulary. They are the big red books kept behind the reference desk. They can be helpful for two reasons:

• Gather more terms (in general) to incorporate into your search, and
• Provide useful subject headings for book searches.

The burden is on you to find the rights to use in your searches. While it can give you useful terms, it also controls teh vocabulary used to find books. You don't have to guess what the book is about. These subject and concept terms help guide you to best terms for library catalog use. You can learn what the appropriate search term is and how to narrow it or broaden it. There are a few terms you will need learn: UF means "Used For" and it is not recommended that you use the terms in this list for catalog searches for books. "BT" means "broad terms" and these terms are broader than the term you are looking up. The opposite is true of "NT" or narrow terms. These terms are more narrow than your term. "RT" means related terms, which are synonyms.

Here's what a page looks like.

Now you can view the entire LCSH online.

It is not unusual that fields such as medicine (MESH) or education (ERIC), for instance, to have their own controlled vocabulary. In fact, Moody Library has MedLine with MESH.

After determining your thesis, try using this especially when you are stumped and and not having good results.