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First Year Seminar - Search Strategies

Controlled Vocabulary - a set of predefined terms added to records as they are created in databases

Subject Headings or Descriptors - the label for these terms when they appear in in the user interface

Thesaurus - the complete list of these terms which also defines relationships among them.

 

 

Then there is the super-easy way to make use of the thesaurus.
Remember our sample record? [backup]

 

Bring keyword searching into your process when:

a) the descriptor/subject heading search results need further refinement
b) the available headings or descriptors are poorly matched to the concept