When you type things into search boxes, you are, by default, doing what is known as a keyword search. When you are looking for information on certain topics it can be helpful to do a subject search instead. However, some subject headers are not as robust or descriptive, so a highly targeted keyword search might be better in some cases. Here are some key differences between the two search types of searches:
| Keyword Search |
Subject Search |
- searches anywhere in the record for the words you typed
- provides a lot more, but possibly unrelated, results
- useful if you know that you have the correct words
- search terms are the same regardless of where you are looking
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- has been tagged by a librarian as being relevant to the assigned subject
- provides fewer, but more relevant, results
- useful when multiple terms describe the same idea
- different databases might use different subject headings
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