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Traditional Bibliographic Tools
Back to: How to Find Information
Let us start with the traditional bibliographic tools. Originally, the way to find materials in a collection was through lists made by people. These lists were not arranged in special ways, but were simply a listing of the materials in a collection. These types of lists are still used today, primarily by booksellers who want to let potential buyers know what they have to sell. Here is an example from a rare book catalog. The arrangement is not by subject or author. On the first page of the list are books on all kinds of subjects: Aesop's fables, the Hebrew alphabet, the months, and so on. The focus of this list is on the beautiful woodcuts and wood engravings inside the books. Other lists can be a person's collection that is up for auction, or just the list of the books in the shop available for sale to the public.
For research purposes, a more important way to find information is through catalogs. A catalog is
So, if you want to find all materials authored by Leo Tolstoy, you can do it even though you don't know all the different ways that Tolstoy's name has been spelled. This is quite different from a search engine. How do librarians do this?
When a new book comes to the library, the librarian makes a record for it. This record is called the bibliographic record, the catalog record, or today, the metadata record. A record is made up of a description of the item (for example, the publication date, number of pages, etc.) according to standards shared around the world. But to allow for concept searching, the librarian must refer to other tools. Here is an example.
Resources by and about Leo Tolstoy have appeared under many names: Tolstoj, Lav Nikolajević, Tolstoi, Leo, Tolsztoj, Lev, to name just a few. In fact, Tolstoy's real name was in Russian, and looks like Лев Николаевич Толстой. How do librarians handle this?
Librarians choose a single form of name and make sure that every record they make for items by or about Leo Tolstoy has that form of name, no matter what the item may have written on it.The way this works can be shown through an example of some of Tolstoy's correspondence held at the Library of Congress. Note how the title has:
Although Tolstoy's name is spelled with an "i" on the item (something many people would not even think of), Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 is the form used for searching purposes. In that record, you will see other parts of the record where you can click and search the catalog:
We see that the catalog attempts to create groups or sets of records by using single forms of names to bring the concepts together. These single forms of name are called controlled vocabulary.
How do Librarians do This?
Librarians maintain extensive files of these names and subjects (controlled vocabulary) in databases called "authority files" (because these are the forms authorized for use in the catalog). U.S. librarians put their forms into a shared, international database called the Library of Congress Authority File (actually, many libraries besides the Library of Congress add names to this file). This file has literally millions of records, some of them quite complex. Other libraries use their own authority files, e.g. Italian libraries in Italian, Russian libraries in Russian, etc.
Basing their work on various rules and standards, librarians decide upon a form of name to use, such as Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910. Of course, not everybody will think about using this form of name, so therefore, they create cross-references for this name. A cross-reference allows users to search for the form of name or subject that they think of, and then be directed to the form used in the catalog.
Let's see how this works.
The system is set up so that when you search:
The search in the Library of Congress catalog for Tolstoi, L returns this result:
Clicking on More Info for Number 3, you get the following screen
Here is only part of the record for Tolstoy from the LC Authority File. This record has been made over many years by many experts. Several forms of his name may look strange to us, but someone, somewhere, would think of his name in each way. For every form of name in Used for/See from form, you can find it by a search in the LC catalog, just like the form Tolstoi.
The librarian first makes the description based on international standards. In this case, it means that the librarian enters the Title, Publication Information, Paging (description), any Notes and the ISBN.
Now, it's time to add the names and subjects so that people can find this book. The librarian checks to see if Mr. Kitcher has written something before, and if he has a form in the LC Authority File. In this case, he does.
Therefore, we must use this form of name in our record. Since everyone else will use this same form, whether the next book appears with "Phil Kitcher," or "P. Kitcher" it doesn't matter for the user. The librarian would add a cross-reference from Kitcher, Phil or Kitcher, P. to this form. In this way, users will always find all of his works by searching: Kitcher, Philip, 1947-
Now come the subjects. We will not discuss how subjects are assigned, we will merely note that the process of finding the subjects are similar to what happens with names. In this way, you can find this book in multiple ways.
This book is about the controversy over evolution, especially the aspects concerning creationism and religion. In the catalog, we see that this is handled through the following terms:
How can a user find these terms? A major source of help is through the use of the authority files.
The following authority record is excerpted from the entire record for Evolution. Notice how it has other subjects that may interest you: See also (Creation and Teleology) and several more specific terms or Narrower Terms.
Therefore, if we are looking for books on Evolution we can find this book.
The next aspect of the subject is evolution and its relationship to religion. Browsing the LC Authority File, looking for some relationship with religion, we find:
From this record, we learn that we must search under the subject: Evolution--Religious aspects. While the catalog record cannot contain the subjects Evolution and religion, or Religion and evolution (these are Used For/See From), users who know enough to search these forms in the LC authority file will find the correct form through a cross-reference:
Therefore, if we search for the relationship of evolution and religion, we can find this item.
When we search for Creationism in the LC Authority File, we find that this is the form used in the catalog, plus there are a few "Search Also Under" which give us some other interesting forms to search if we wish. There is also a "Scope Note" which defines the form more clearly.
Note also that if you search under e.g. Modernist-fundamentalist controversy, the cross-reference will lead you to the form Creationism, which will lead you to this book. Therefore, with the use of the cross-references available through the Authority Files, the possibility for finding information expands tremendously.
Therefore, if we search for Creationism, we can find this book.
Important Tip
It should now be clear that it is difficult to determine beforehand exactly what terms will be used in any catalog record. A basic rule of thumb used by all librarians is:
Look for items in more than one way!
Authority files in other databases
This method of organizing information for retrieval goes back hundreds, if not thousands, of years, so it should come as no surprise to discover that library catalogs are not the only databases that use authority files. They may not be called authority files, however. Here are a couple of examples.
The Sage Journals database uses special forms, but you don't look for authority file, you look for descriptor or thesaurus. This is the Sage authority record for Creationism. Their related terms are different from what we saw before.
Other databases may not have actual authorized forms, but may have something else. The Elsevier journals allow you to select broad subjects. Here, the user can select social sciences.
Saving Time
Correct use of the controlled vocabulary can save people a lot of time, since the task of bringing together all materials dealing with a concept has been done already by the librarian. To see how this can save your time, let's imagine that you want to do some research on dogs. For this illustration, we will search the Princeton Library Catalog for the concept "dogs."
First, you can click "More Info" and find out some additional terms that may interest you. As you scroll through this list, you will see some concepts that may not ever occur to you such as Dogs as laboratory animals, Dogs, Legends and stories, Dogs -- Mythology, Dogs, War Use, and lots of Dogs in different places: Dogs--Alaska, Dogs--France, Dogs--Japan, etc.. In just a couple of minutes, you reach the end of the list and come to other concepts: Dogsharks, Dogsledding, etc.
What have you just done?
You have just browsed through all of the books on Dogs held at one of the great libraries in the world which has millions of books. And you did it in a very structured, controlled, understandable way. Plus, you didn't have to wade through a lot of stuff that was not about dogs. All this took just a few minutes!
Can you do that in a search engine?
It should be clear from this small demonstration that the authority files are very important not only for the librarian, but also for the user. If users know how to use authority files efficiently and quickly, they can become much better searchers.
Continue with: Full-Text and Search Engines
Let us start with the traditional bibliographic tools. Originally, the way to find materials in a collection was through lists made by people. These lists were not arranged in special ways, but were simply a listing of the materials in a collection. These types of lists are still used today, primarily by booksellers who want to let potential buyers know what they have to sell. Here is an example from a rare book catalog. The arrangement is not by subject or author. On the first page of the list are books on all kinds of subjects: Aesop's fables, the Hebrew alphabet, the months, and so on. The focus of this list is on the beautiful woodcuts and wood engravings inside the books. Other lists can be a person's collection that is up for auction, or just the list of the books in the shop available for sale to the public.
For research purposes, a more important way to find information is through catalogs. A catalog is
a comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps, and other materials in a given collection, arranged in systematic order to facilitate retrieval (usually alphabetically by author, title, and/or subject). (from ODLIS)The real strength of a catalog is that you can search for concepts. This means that you can search for everything in the collection by
- a person (e.g. William Shakespeare)
- a group of people (corporate bodies, e.g. IBM, U.S. Congress)
- the same work (e.g. all versions of War and Peace)
- subjects
So, if you want to find all materials authored by Leo Tolstoy, you can do it even though you don't know all the different ways that Tolstoy's name has been spelled. This is quite different from a search engine. How do librarians do this?
When a new book comes to the library, the librarian makes a record for it. This record is called the bibliographic record, the catalog record, or today, the metadata record. A record is made up of a description of the item (for example, the publication date, number of pages, etc.) according to standards shared around the world. But to allow for concept searching, the librarian must refer to other tools. Here is an example.
Resources by and about Leo Tolstoy have appeared under many names: Tolstoj, Lav Nikolajević, Tolstoi, Leo, Tolsztoj, Lev, to name just a few. In fact, Tolstoy's real name was in Russian, and looks like Лев Николаевич Толстой. How do librarians handle this?
Librarians choose a single form of name and make sure that every record they make for items by or about Leo Tolstoy has that form of name, no matter what the item may have written on it.The way this works can be shown through an example of some of Tolstoy's correspondence held at the Library of Congress. Note how the title has:
- Shaker-Russian correspondence : between Count Leo Tolstoi and Elder F.W. Evans.
- Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910.
Although Tolstoy's name is spelled with an "i" on the item (something many people would not even think of), Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 is the form used for searching purposes. In that record, you will see other parts of the record where you can click and search the catalog:
Evans, F. W. (Frederick William), 1808-1893We see also that Elder F.W. Evans in the title is searched as Evans, F. W. (Frederick William), 1808-1893, and there are other parts as well. This means that no matter how Evans' name appears, or MacLean's, or the correspondence of the Shakers (a religious sect), and so on, you will always be able to find the materials through searching the forms you see here.
MacLean, J. P. (John Patterson), 1848-1939, former owner.
Shaker Collection (Library of Congress)
Evans, F. W. (Frederick William), 1808-1893 --Correspondence.
Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 --Correspondence.
Shakers--Correspondence.
Property--Religious aspects.
Collective settlements.
We see that the catalog attempts to create groups or sets of records by using single forms of names to bring the concepts together. These single forms of name are called controlled vocabulary.
How do Librarians do This?
Librarians maintain extensive files of these names and subjects (controlled vocabulary) in databases called "authority files" (because these are the forms authorized for use in the catalog). U.S. librarians put their forms into a shared, international database called the Library of Congress Authority File (actually, many libraries besides the Library of Congress add names to this file). This file has literally millions of records, some of them quite complex. Other libraries use their own authority files, e.g. Italian libraries in Italian, Russian libraries in Russian, etc.
Basing their work on various rules and standards, librarians decide upon a form of name to use, such as Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910. Of course, not everybody will think about using this form of name, so therefore, they create cross-references for this name. A cross-reference allows users to search for the form of name or subject that they think of, and then be directed to the form used in the catalog.
Let's see how this works.
The system is set up so that when you search:
Tolstoi, Lyou will get something like:
See: Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910
The search in the Library of Congress catalog for Tolstoi, L returns this result:
Clicking on More Info for Number 3, you get the following screen
and this way, the users can find the correct forms of name to search.
Here is only part of the record for Tolstoy from the LC Authority File. This record has been made over many years by many experts. Several forms of his name may look strange to us, but someone, somewhere, would think of his name in each way. For every form of name in Used for/See from form, you can find it by a search in the LC catalog, just like the form Tolstoi.
This is the same method that was used in the card catalogs. Here is a reference card for Tolstoy from an earlier catalog. We notice that the form of Tolstoy's name used at that time is not the same as today.
Let's examine a slightly more complicated and complete example that includes subjects. Let's say that the library receives this book.
Users would browse the cards to find the form
Tolstoy, Leo N
and they would find the note that tells them to see the form that will have all of his works
 |  (author) |
The librarian first makes the description based on international standards. In this case, it means that the librarian enters the Title, Publication Information, Paging (description), any Notes and the ISBN.
Author/Artist:Published:
Title:Abusing science : the case against creationism / Philip Kitcher.Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1982.Description:x, 213 p. ; 24 cm.Notes:Includes index.
Bibliography: p. [205]-208.Subject(s):
ISBN:0262110857
Now, it's time to add the names and subjects so that people can find this book. The librarian checks to see if Mr. Kitcher has written something before, and if he has a form in the LC Authority File. In this case, he does.
Therefore, we must use this form of name in our record. Since everyone else will use this same form, whether the next book appears with "Phil Kitcher," or "P. Kitcher" it doesn't matter for the user. The librarian would add a cross-reference from Kitcher, Phil or Kitcher, P. to this form. In this way, users will always find all of his works by searching: Kitcher, Philip, 1947-
Author/Artist:Kitcher, Philip, 1947-Title:Abusing science : the case against creationism / Philip Kitcher.Published:Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1982.Description:x, 213 p. ; 24 cm.Notes:Includes index.
Bibliography: p. [205]-208.Subject(s):Evolution.
Evolution--Religious aspects.
Creationism.ISBN:0262110857
Now come the subjects. We will not discuss how subjects are assigned, we will merely note that the process of finding the subjects are similar to what happens with names. In this way, you can find this book in multiple ways.
This book is about the controversy over evolution, especially the aspects concerning creationism and religion. In the catalog, we see that this is handled through the following terms:
Evolution.
Evolution--Religious aspects.
Creationism.
How can a user find these terms? A major source of help is through the use of the authority files.
The following authority record is excerpted from the entire record for Evolution. Notice how it has other subjects that may interest you: See also (Creation and Teleology) and several more specific terms or Narrower Terms.
Therefore, if we are looking for books on Evolution we can find this book.
Author/Artist:Kitcher, Philip, 1947-Title:
Abusing science : the case against creationism / Philip Kitcher.Published:
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1982.Description:
x, 213 p. ; 24 cm.Notes:
Includes index.
Bibliography: p. [205]-208.Subject(s):
Evolution.
Evolution--Religious aspects.
Creationism.
ISBN:
0262110857
The next aspect of the subject is evolution and its relationship to religion. Browsing the LC Authority File, looking for some relationship with religion, we find:
From this record, we learn that we must search under the subject: Evolution--Religious aspects. While the catalog record cannot contain the subjects Evolution and religion, or Religion and evolution (these are Used For/See From), users who know enough to search these forms in the LC authority file will find the correct form through a cross-reference:
Therefore, if we search for the relationship of evolution and religion, we can find this item.
Author/Artist:Kitcher, Philip, 1947-Title:
Abusing science : the case against creationism / Philip Kitcher.Published:
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1982.Description:
x, 213 p. ; 24 cm.Notes:
Includes index.
Bibliography: p. [205]-208.Subject(s):
Evolution.
Evolution--Religious aspects.
Creationism.
ISBN:
0262110857
When we search for Creationism in the LC Authority File, we find that this is the form used in the catalog, plus there are a few "Search Also Under" which give us some other interesting forms to search if we wish. There is also a "Scope Note" which defines the form more clearly.
Note also that if you search under e.g. Modernist-fundamentalist controversy, the cross-reference will lead you to the form Creationism, which will lead you to this book. Therefore, with the use of the cross-references available through the Authority Files, the possibility for finding information expands tremendously.
Therefore, if we search for Creationism, we can find this book.
Author/Artist:Kitcher, Philip, 1947-Title:
Abusing science : the case against creationism / Philip Kitcher.Published:
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1982.Description:
x, 213 p. ; 24 cm.Notes:
Includes index.
Bibliography: p. [205]-208.Subject(s):
Evolution.
Evolution--Religious aspects.
Creationism.
ISBN:
0262110857
Important Tip
It should now be clear that it is difficult to determine beforehand exactly what terms will be used in any catalog record. A basic rule of thumb used by all librarians is:
Look for items in more than one way!
For example:
if you don't find something by its author, look for it by the title, or series or subject.
If you don't find something by its title, look for it by its author, or series or subject.
BE FLEXIBLE!
if you don't find something by its author, look for it by the title, or series or subject.
If you don't find something by its title, look for it by its author, or series or subject.
BE FLEXIBLE!
Authority files in other databases
This method of organizing information for retrieval goes back hundreds, if not thousands, of years, so it should come as no surprise to discover that library catalogs are not the only databases that use authority files. They may not be called authority files, however. Here are a couple of examples.
The Sage Journals database uses special forms, but you don't look for authority file, you look for descriptor or thesaurus. This is the Sage authority record for Creationism. Their related terms are different from what we saw before.
Authority files of different databases are still not coordinated!
Each database has its own forms!
Other databases may not have actual authorized forms, but may have something else. The Elsevier journals allow you to select broad subjects. Here, the user can select social sciences.
Saving Time
Correct use of the controlled vocabulary can save people a lot of time, since the task of bringing together all materials dealing with a concept has been done already by the librarian. To see how this can save your time, let's imagine that you want to do some research on dogs. For this illustration, we will search the Princeton Library Catalog for the concept "dogs."
First, you can click "More Info" and find out some additional terms that may interest you. As you scroll through this list, you will see some concepts that may not ever occur to you such as Dogs as laboratory animals, Dogs, Legends and stories, Dogs -- Mythology, Dogs, War Use, and lots of Dogs in different places: Dogs--Alaska, Dogs--France, Dogs--Japan, etc.. In just a couple of minutes, you reach the end of the list and come to other concepts: Dogsharks, Dogsledding, etc.
What have you just done?
You have just browsed through all of the books on Dogs held at one of the great libraries in the world which has millions of books. And you did it in a very structured, controlled, understandable way. Plus, you didn't have to wade through a lot of stuff that was not about dogs. All this took just a few minutes!
Can you do that in a search engine?
It should be clear from this small demonstration that the authority files are very important not only for the librarian, but also for the user. If users know how to use authority files efficiently and quickly, they can become much better searchers.
Continue with: Full-Text and Search Engines
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