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
|
Search Technique
|
What It Does
|
|
quotation marks
|
Searches for exact phrase
|
|
Truncation *
|
Searches for all forms of a word
|
|
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
|
Lets you broaden or narrow your search
|
The first step in formulating a search strategy is to take your topic and break it into discrete concepts or keywords. Identify key words and phrases and brainstorm alternate spellings, related terms, broader terms, or narrower terms.
Topic: disaster films
Search for keywords "Motion Pictures" or "Cinema" or "Film" to get the broadest possible view of the material. Consider other synonyms for male.
(films OR "motion pictures" OR cinema) AND disaster
Other searches to consider:
For works about a particular person (director, actor, etc.), do an subject search, e.g. soderbergh steven
To search for a movie, search the film title as either a title or keyword search and select Resource Type: Video/Film.
To find books on a film topic, either try a subject or keyword search.
Subject Searching
Most film-related books are given the subject heading motion pictures or motion picture [noun]. Certain subject headings use film in the subject field - usually for genre terms. Some books (mostly French) have the word cinema in the subject field.
If you are looking for criticism or the technique of motion picture reviewing, use film criticism.
If you are interested in movies made in a particular country, e.g. american cinema, use "motion pictures" and the name of the country, e.g. motion pictures united states
If you are interested in a particular type of movie (genre), try using "films" in your search, e.g.martial arts films, silent films, disaster films .
If you are interested in the technical aspects of making movies and their projection onto the screen, use cinematography.
