Subject Searching in the Library Catalog

You'd think you could enter any topic as a Subject search in the Library Catalog. However, the Subject search uses special terms to organize books by subject. These are called Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH for short). If you enter your keywords as a Subject search, you may not get much back. For example:

If you entered a subject terms search for: Death Penalty you would get no or very few books, and a number of scattered articles.

But if you searched using the LCSH term, Capital Punishment you'd see that the Catalog gives you aover 30,000 results, over 350 of them coming from books or book chapters/essays.

If you are at the Library, you can actually browse these headings in book form.  They are in five thick red volumes.  Ask a librarian to show you where they are.