Library and Information Services, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Tuesday, 8 May 2018

Search Tips for Your RCS Literature Search

At a recent workshop with BEdMus students, we explored different ways of fine-tuning your search techniques to retrieve better results in the catalogue and using Catalogue Plus.

Our catalogue offers access to all physical resources in the library (books, music, recordings etc) and also to individual e-book titles.  Meanwhile, Catalogue Plus offers access to all electronic resources - journal articles, databases, sound recordings, etc.
Here's a PowerPoint summary of what we talked about.

Extra free tip!

Don't forget the power of the synonym.  If one word doesn't retrieve what you expect, try another word that means the same thing. 
  1. For example, nowadays we talk about "high ability" pupils, but earlier authors wrote about "gifted children".  Or prodigies! 
  2. Similarly, sometimes you can get better results with a different version of the word.  If you want to write about Smetana or Sibelius as part of the late Romantic nationalist movement, searching for "nationalist music" may yield different results to when you search on Nationalism, or try Nationalism AND Music.

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