Getting Better Results Burleson High School Library Media Center The Information Hunt Getting Better Results Burleson High School Library Media Center

Introduction Finding information on the Internet, in the databases, and library catalog for that matter can be a frustrating experience. There are so many options for searching that confusion and frustration tend to be the norm. The goal of this lesson is to introduce you to three types of searches that can help you find information quickly with less frustration and confusion. The three types of searches that will be covered in this presentation include keyword, subject, and full-text.

Keyword Searches For the most part, keyword searches look for your search term within the MARC records. If your search term is found in the record, it will list the item in the results screen. This type of searching can return records that have nothing to do with what you want as you will see in the example on the next slide.

Keyword Searches - Example Below is one of the MARC records returned using a keyword search for “skateboarding” in a library catalog. Is this what you were really looking for? This is a book titled, Bull Rider by Suzanne Williams. The search term was found in the 520 field which contains a brief summary of the book.

Subject Searches Subject searches look for your term in the fields of the MARC record reserved for subject terms. Since subject fields contain terms that describe what the object (book/article) is about, this type of search will retrieve very specific and relevant results. The difficulty is knowing what “official” subject term is used. It may be Library of Congress or Sears or it could be something proprietary. Most databases will give you suggestions if your specific term is not found. For Infotrac and Ebsco, this information is found on the left side of the screen in its own frame.

Full-Text Searches A full-text search will look at the article (database) or page (Web page) itself for your search term. This will produce a lot of results, but you will spend a lot of time wading through the results to find what you are really looking for because many of the results are no relevant as the example on the next slide will demonstrate.

Full-Text Searches - EXAMPLE The portion of the article below was one of 2,969 returned when using a full text search for “skateboarding.” LaFrance, Casey, and Jennifer M. Allen. "An exploration of the juxtaposition of professional and political accountability in local law enforcement management." International Journal of Police Science & Management 12.1 (2010): 90-118. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Jan. 2010. This quotation was the only time skateboarding was mentioned in the article. This is definitely NOT an article about skateboarding.

Conclusion With the amount of electronic information being produced and indexed increasing exponentially, it is critical you learn the tricks to how searching works in electronic environments. Keyword, subject, and full-text are just three ways (there are more) for getting at the information you need. All three searches can be useful in certain situations. It is important you understand how they work so you can use the right search to find the specific information you need quickly and efficiently. Don’t worry if you struggle at first. Finding information is a skill that takes practice. It gets easier and faster. Your school library media specialist can assist you if you are having difficultly finding what you need. 