GOVT 6354 : Reading History Forward: Finding more primary source materials

Library of Congress subject headings use a controlled vocabulary. These subject headings are applied to catalog records to help scholars find additional materials. The Subject Browse option in the library catalog is very useful for uncovering the depth of our holdings in different areas and subjects. You can begin by simply entering a country name and browsing through all of the headings and subheadings, or you can start with a keyword search to find relevant subject headings.

Finding relevant LC Subject Headings to browse:

1. Open the library catalog
2. Start with a keyword search. Example: Africa colonial administration
3. Open catalog records to find relevant subject headings. Example:  Africa > History > 1884-1960
4.  Copy and paste the subject heading into the search window and use the pull-down menu to select [Subject Browse (A-Z).]

Note:  the subheading > "Sources" appended to a Library of Congress Subject Heading is applied to primary source material (but doesn't identify all of the materials we might consider primary sources, such as documents, newspapers, etc.) .