Although an Browse Subject search remains the best way to begin looking for information on your topic, an "Any Word Anywhere" search provides an excellent followup method.
Run your search:
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The search produces 356 results! The first few of these are the same as those turned up in the Alphabetical Subject Searches, but some did not turn up under the other search strategy. Why not? The topic may have been tucked away under other subject headings.
A look at the record shows why:
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"Eating disorders" turns up in the list of contents, not under the "subjects". If it had appeared as part of the title or subtitle, it also would not appear in Subject search unless it was also categorized by subject under that topic. In the case of the item shown here, eating disorders are only a small section of a larger topic, genetics and behavior. But if you were writing about eating disorders, this book might be a useful one for your research because it would put your topic in a larger context.
But the majority of the results are on entirely unrelated
subjects. Why? Because the catalog does what you tell
it to do — it looks for any of your search terms anywhere
in the record. If any one of them occurs, it is included in the search results,
which is why you don't want Any Word Anywhere to be your primary search.
Try an Any Word Anywhere
search yourself by clicking on the catalog icon below—
try searching for "reconstruction" and "south" as if you
were doing a paper about the South after the Civil War. 
An Any Word Keyword Search can be invaluable for tracking down a particular work quickly if you know the author and title, even if it is a short story or essay (and sometimes even poems).
For example, let's say you wanted William Faulkner's delightfully creepy "A Rose for Emily". If you put in 3 distinctive words connecting the title and author and ran a search:
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You would get more than 380 results in spite of the distinctive words because all it takes is any one of those words showing up once in any part of the record!
But, if you add a plus sign (+) before each term, as in the example:
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You narrow your search down to a single result in the library's collection. While you still may be missing copies of the story in some anthologies, particularly early ones, you do eliminate all of the false positive results. If you expand your search to the entire ILCSO system, you will net a larger pool of results, but keep the same level of precisions. Note that items that do not have Faulkner listed as the author, might not have turned up under a standard author search.
Try an Any Word Anywhere
search yourself by clicking on the catalog icon below—
try searching for Ray Bradbury's short story "The Small Assassin"
by selecting distinct terms and following the process above. Expand your search
to the ILCSO system.
Clearly Any Word Anywhere is a powerful search tool, especially when used in conjunction with Browse Subject searching. But you need to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Even if you aren't using the Illinet catalog, you will find similar search functions in the online catalog available at your library. Take advantage of these tools to make the catalog be your Research Partner!
And REMEMBER, if you have trouble with this, or any other stage in the research process, you can ask for Help! Ask your teacher! Ask a Librarian! If you need to, just hit the PANIC button! |
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For information about this, or any other
Library Web Page, contact the
Library.
©Ruth B. Lindemann, 2003 Danville Area
Community College
2/4/03
Revised 7/21/04
