Online Research & Controlled Vocabulary
Remember the chicken recipe at the beginning of this section and the
hypothetical indexing job later on? You may have been wondering about the
importance of understanding the terms: database; access point; field; record;
subject headings; descriptors; keywords; index and controlled volcabulary.
Once you understand these concepts, you will have a much easier time doing
research online. Let's see how you can use these concepts.
You are already very familiar with the concept of controlled
vocabulary; you may have even used it today. The yellow
pages of a phone book use controlled vocabulary. When you go
to look up "lawyers," the notation under the word lawyers
tells you to "see attorneys." When you go to look up "cars,"
you are directed to look under automobiles. The phone
company is using a controlled vocabulary.
When an indexer receives an article to index, he/she does not randomly select terms, but
rather selects from an approved list for the database. The
approved list (called the thesaurus) contains the acceptable
terminology, called controlled vocabulary, from which to
choose labeling terms.
Each database may have a unique thesaurus or use the Library
of Congress Subject Headings. (We will talk about these
later.)
Imagine that your sociology
professor assigns a paper on the issues facing the elderly. You go to look up information
under "elderly" or "senior citizens" and find virtually
nothing. Now, you KNOW that there must be a great deal of
information on this topic; you just must be using the wrong
terms when looking up the subject. You then look up the
database's controlled vocabulary (thesaurus) and find that
for "elderly" and "senior citizen" the appropriate term is
"aged". You now go back to your search and find hundreds of
records ("hits"). Each database may have its own
thesaurus. It will save you much time and frustration if you
start your search looking for the correct term in the correct
thesaurus, if one is available.
