Search Omni to find books, journals, videos and other materials owned by the Library. You can search by keywords, author, title or subject headings.
To find a specific known item, search by title or author. To find books on a topic, either try a subject or keyword search.
Subject Headings vs Keyword Searching
Subject headings allow you to search for resources on a particular author or topic and are often more productive than keyword searches.
Keyword searches work best if you have multiple concepts or topics and need only a few books.
For a comprehensive subject search, search with subject headings as well as keywords.
Searching Omni
Start with a keyword search, but expect to revise it.
Keyword Searching TIPS
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Search Technique
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What It Does
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quotation marks
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Searches for exact phrase
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Truncation *
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Searches for all forms of a word
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Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
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Lets you broaden or narrow your search
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To find books by a particular author/person, search Omni by author:
locke john
marx karl
To find books about a particular author/person, search Omni by subject heading:
locke john
marx karl
To find books on a topic, use a keyword search if you do not know the correct subject heading for a topic. Think of the focus (or key) words that describe your topic.
"industrial revolution" AND germany
Select useful titles and look at the full record for subject headings.
Industries--Germany--History
Industrial revolution--Europe
Economic history--1750-1918
Working class--Germany--History--19th century
Examples of subject headings relating to intellectual history:
Church history--Modern period, 1500 -
Civilization, Classical
Civilization, Medieval
Enlightenment
Fascism--Europe
Feudalism
Middle Ages
Nationalism
Philosophy, Renaissance
Renaissance
Reformation
Radicalism--Great Britain
Science--History-- Europe
For an overview of the historical period, you can search the following subject headings after the name of a country:
--Civilization
--Economic conditions
--History
--Intellectual life
--Politics and government
--Social conditions
For example, if you want to find information on German intellectual thought in the nineteenth century, you could search:
Germany--Intellectual life--19th century
To find bibliographies on a topic, look for the subdivision bibliography following a subject heading.
civilization, western--history--bibliography
science--history--bibliography
To find primary sources in the library, look for the subdivision sources following a subject heading.
civilization, western--history--sources
science--history--sources
