HSLS Update

Search tips: Subject Searching in PITTCat

Start at the author/title/subject search screen.

Type your search term or phrase in Box 1 Search for. In Box 2 Search By choose “Subject Heading”. Ignore Box 3, because limits do not apply to a subject search. Click the grey Search button. PITTCat will search for subject headings matching or beginning with your term.

Subject searches bring you first to a Headings list. There are four columns to the list:

# [Number sign]: numbering within the list.

! Watch here for the gold “note” and “see also” bubbles. You can click on these to get definitions and related subject headings. Not all headings have them, but when you find them they can be helpful.

Titles: a count of bibliographic records containing this heading.

! If this column is blank, check for the “see also” bubble in the first column to identify a better term for your search.

Heading: the full subject heading. Headings are listed in alphabetical order.

! Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) use multiple headings to represent the same concepts. Library of Congress (LC) headings often have long subject strings to represent a specific category of material.

Heading Type: the subject thesaurus. We recommend that you focus on MeSH and/or LC Subject Headings, since these are the thesauri used at HSLS.

! Watch the Heading Type to help you choose the best heading. The same term in different subject thesauri can have different mean-ings e.g., ‘Depression’ or ‘Labor’.

Any heading that has bibliographic records attached to it is hyperlinked, and you can simply click on it to proceed to the titles list for that heading. To return to the headings list in order to try other subject headings, click on the “Headings” button at the top of the screen.

In PITTCat’s display of bibliographic records, the subject headings are hyperlinked. This means that when you find one work that you want, you can find others like it with a click of the mouse. Simply click on the subject heading which most describes the facet of the work that interests you; it will take you to a headings list like the one described above.

--HSLS Catalogers