Finding Books

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Books, videos, and other materials in library catalogs are assigned official subject headings by the Library of Congress. These subject headings describe an item's content and what it is about, and are useful for focusing research on broader, narrower, or related topics. Look for subject heading links in the library catalog to find more items on the same topic.

For example, the book Dance and the Hollywood Latina has the following LC Subject Headings to describe it:

• Hispanic Americans in motion pictures.
• Hispanic Americans in the motion picture industry.
• Hispanic American motion picture actors and actresses.
• Dance in motion pictures, television, etc. -- United States.
• Race in motion pictures.
• Sex in motion pictures.

Subdivisions, or subheadings, are words or phrases which may be added to a subject heading to create a more effective search. Some standard subheadings are:

For assistance and other tips on how to construct more efficient searches, ask a reference librarian.