Module 4. FIELD SEARCHING (Author, Title)

Objectives - On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• identify the major advantage of field searching
• recognize that exact information is necessary to search specific fields
• develop a field search using specific information

Review -

Module 1 introduces two types of commonly-used databases - library catalogs and article (bibliographic) databases.

Module 2 describes the standard fields in a catalog record or citation - title (of a book, journal or journal article), author (or editor), publisher, year of publication, source (if a journal article) and subject headings.

Module 3 explains searching with keywords and the use of Boolean operators to connect keywords.

Introduction to field searching -

Field searching can produce highly relevant results, provided you have exact, though not necessarily complete, information about an author, a title or a subject heading.

As color-keyed in the table below, a search using the author's exact name is restricted to the author field and a title search of exact terms is restricted to the title field to produce the most concentrated or focused results. Subject searches are a type of field search that will be explored in Module 5.

SEARCH OPTIONS	FIELDS IN A RECORD
Keyword	Title
	Author
Author	Publisher
	Year
Title	Notes
	Source
Subject	Subject Headings

A) Searching in the 'title field' - Let's say you need the call number to locate the book entitled "Cardiology of the Horse". Enter the title and select Title in the Search by: box as shown here:

The resulting item record is -

B) Searching in the 'author' field:

1) You have an excellent text on veterinary surgery by M. Joseph Bojrab. To find other texts written by this author, search for his name in the Author/Name field.

This search produces a list of all titles by this individual.

2) It is important to use complete information in this format - last name, initial and first name - in the Author/Name field. An unusual last name, as in the last example, may be sufficient. However, a common surname like Smith or Brown may require first name or initials to find the author you want.

3) Author/ Name may refer to either:

• an individual author, or
• a corporate author such as an institution, organization, or conference.

4) To search the name of a corporate author, enter the entire name of the group, not its abbreviated title. These searches result in a listing of all types of publications by the group, (e. g., proceedings, newsletters, reports, or journals) if owned by the Libraries.

Example of a corporate author search: You want the book on pet ownership data authored by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Enter the name of the association in the Author Browse field.

A browse search takes you to an index screen where you select the Heading having the most titles associated with it.

Click the top Heading to see the following catalog entries -

5) When to use field searching? Search by specific field when you have some specific information about an item, but need to know all its bibliographic information. Field searching produces focused search results.

C) Subject (or controlled vocabulary) searching is also a form of field searching, as preferred terms are search only in the Subject Headings field. See Module 5.

Summary of Module 4

Field searches, unlike keyword searches, require exact, even if incomplete, information (e. g., the author's last name or part of the title of a book) in order to locate complete information about the item.

The author of a item may be either an individual, a group of individuals or a corporate group such as a professional organization.

Mini Test on Module 4

1. To search successfully in an author, title or subject headings field, you must have complete and exact information for that field.
   True
   False
   
   

2. Authorship of a publication may be attributed to an organization or association, as well as to an individual or group of individuals.
   True
   False
   
   

3. Searching in a given field will provide more specific results than keyword searching.
   True
   False
   
   

Module 5 deals with effective subject searching using a controlled vocabulary.