Research Guides: Classical Literature: Finding Books

Keyword vs. Subject

Keywords--terms that can appear anywhere in a record--are the quick and easy way to search.
Using keywords, you can combine multiple ideas, or locate specific essays inside collective works.

Connectors: Use "and" or "or" to specify multiple words in any field, any order. Use "and not" to exclude words. Examples:

greece and rome
greece or rome
latin not "latin america"

Wildcards: Words may be right-hand truncated using an asterisk or question mark:

* for any number of characters
? to replace a single character anywhere within a word

Examples : theat*, wom?n

Adjacency: "And" is assumed between words. Place phrases in quotes. Example:

"lyric poetry"

Subject Headings--terms applied by catalogers or indexers--describe the content of the item. Often, subject headings are divided by geographic place, by time period, by ethnic group, or other aspects. Subject headings are searched as phrases.

Using subject headings will pull together related records with terminology you may have not considered in your keyword search.

Examples:

keywords	subject headings
horatian satire	horace--criticism and interpretation
women athens	women--greece--history
achilles as hero	achilles (greek mythology) in literature

Attribution

Material on this page originally created by

Beth Juhl
Web Services
University of Arkansas Libraries

Classical Studies LibGuide

Useful Subject Terms

Search in the library catalog under subjects and keywords such as:

broad topics	sample subject terms
art, architecure, archaeology	art, greek art, roman architecture, greek architecture, roman greece--antiquities rome--antiquities art and mythology
history and geography	greece--history (time period) rome--history (time period) athens--greece--politics and government emperors--rome greece--social life and customs rome--economic conditions women--rome
literature and drama	greek drama greek literature latin literature latin drama, comedy greek poetry latin poetry To search for works by an author, look under author: aeschylus euripides To search for works about an author, look under subject: aeschylus euripides To search for books about a particular work, try keyword or look under the author as subject: aristophanes frogs
religion and mythology	mythology, greek mythology, roman individual characters, for example: hippolytus (greek mythology) hercules (roman mythology) greece--religion rome--religion cults--greece cults--rome