Searching by Subject for Videos and Recorded Music

There are two main approaches you can take when looking up videos or music on a particular topic: Subject (LC) or Keyword. What does it mean to do a "subject" search as opposed to a "keyword" search?

A "subject" search means that you use subject words or phrases (called subject headings) established by the Library of Congress (LC) in Washington, D.C. instead of keywords which may be slang words or less precise, casual expressions.

For example, if you want to find videos on interviewing for jobs you could do a keyword search for the word interviewing. The problem is that you will also get videos on interviewing in other contexts, such as in counseling sessions or as done by journalists. If instead you searched the Library of Congress subject heading employment interviewing, you would get videos directly on that topic and that topic only.

Of course, how do you know what the official Library of Congress subject headings are? The subject headings for every book or other material listed in the library catalog are given on the item's record. Below is an example for a book on employment interviewing. Scrolling through the record you see the section called "LC Subject" where you will find these headings.

Many times it's helpful to do a keyword search first, find a good record and look at the LC Subject headings used, and then repeat the search using the official subject heading. To do so, go to the library catalog opening search screen and click on the link to "Subject (Library of Congress)". The Subject search screen is shown below.

On the Subject search screen, we would then type the LC Subject Heading employment interviewing. When you do the search and your results appear on the screen, you can press the "Limit/Sort" button to limit the list to a specific material format (e.g. videos).

A popular type of subject search for videos and recorded music is genre. Let's see how to search by genre in the next section.