LSU Libraries
Researching a Career

Part 1: Researching a Career online

     Step 4: Online Catalog

The online catalog is an electronic index of everything in the library's collection. It is easily accessed on the LSU Libraries' home page. Accessing the Libraries' holdings is accomplished a number of ways. However, two useful techniques are Keyword searching and Subject searching.

Keyword Searching This is a basic search. Use any term or combination of terms that seems logical to you, such as "teacher and career."

keywords anywhere search


Subject Searching Subject searching is a much more focused means of finding what you want in the online catalog without all the extra results scooped up by "keywords anywhere" searching. Subject searching can be tricky, however, in that you need to know the official Library of Congress subject headings that are assigned to each catalog record. Below is an example of a subject search in the Advanced Search mode of the online catalog for information on teaching as a career.

subject search


The full record of any item in the Libraries' collection includes subject terms that are hyperlinked to other items on the same subject, as in the screen shot below.

Subject term links in results


By using the subject term hyperlinks, you can generate a list of library material that is exactly on the subject you are researching.

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