POSC 490: Seminar In Government (Education Policy)

WILDPAC searches materials from the WNE Law Library as well as D'Amour Library. This is also where you would go to search for course reserves.

You can search WILDPAC by keyword, title, author, or subject heading.

• Keyword searching means you use your own terminology and WILDPAC will search the whole item record for your search terms: title, author, subject, etc. (combine multiple keywords to narrow or widen your search as needed)
• Title searching requires that you already know all or part of the title of what you're looking for
• Author searching requires that you know all or part of your author's name
• Subject searching means you must use a specific controlled vocabulary called Library of Congress Subject Headings to search for items:

1. Start with a keyword search
2. Once you've found one book on your topic, scroll down to the "Subject" section to see a list of subject headings
3. Click on a subject heading to search for other books with that same subject heading

What is the difference between subject and keyword searching?

In keyword searching, you can use your vocabulary, and the catalog searches for those terms throughout in the item record: title, author, subject, chapter titles. You can combine multiple keywords to narrow or widen your search as needed. For example:

• rhetoric and public speaking (searches for books and media with both "Rhetoric" and "Public Speaking" mentioned somewhere in the title, subject, chapter titles, or authors' names.)
• language or linguistics (searches for books and media with one or both terms in the title, subject, chapter titles, or author. Use "or" to search for synonyms, similar terms, and spelling variations, or to broaden your search.

With subject searching, you must use a specific controlled vocabulary called Library of Congress Subject Headings to search for items. The easiest way to search by subject is to start with a keyword search. Once you've found one book on your topic, click on the tab "Find Similar Items" to see a list of subject headings. Click on a subject heading to search for other books with that same subject heading. Subject searching is more precise than keyword searching, but it takes some getting used to.

For example:

1. Keyword: business
2. One of the books that appears in the results is International Business and Global Climate Change. Click on the title and then click on the "Find Similar Items" tab.
3. One of the subject terms is Environmental Policy--Economic Aspects. Click on that link to find many more titles related to the economic aspects of environmental policy. This new list will be more narrowly focused than the initial keyword search, which included works about many different aspects of business.