Ancient Rome (Ancient History Encyclopedia)
Pax Romana (Ancient History Encyclopedia)
A subject heading is a specific word or phrase used to find and organize books and articles by topic. Subject headings can be a great way to easily find things related directly to your topic. Once you have identified a book or article that is worthwhile, look at the subject headings. In the online catalog these are found in the "catalog record" and you can click directly on the subject heading to get a list of books on the same subject.
Subject headings are different from keywords in that they are specific terms assigned to a subject by an organization. For example, the Library of Congress supplies subject headings for books owned by our library (and other libraries), and the companies that provides our online databases supplies subject headings for the articles indexed in their databases.
These subject headings, also known as subject descriptors, may not be what you would expect. You might, for instance, go to our catalog and search for autobiographies and Nobel Prize winner, but the Library of Congress uses the term Personal Narrative instead of autobiography. If you fail to search using the term "personal narrative," you may miss some useful items.
Subject headings can often be found on the page of a book that provides the publisher's information, or at or near the bottom of the page of an online record of a book or article. The subject heading can be used to search for related books or articles when copied exactly as printed.
In the library catalog and many databases, an items's subject(s) will be a link, so that you can click on the subject heading to find similar items. You also might want to note the exact words to search them as a keyword later.
