Subject Headings
Subject Headings are standardized terms or phrases assigned to books, articles, and other library materials to describe their subject matter. They serve as access points to help users find relevant resources on a particular topic. Subject headings enable you to search for articles about the subject.
To find subject headings in journal databases, follow these steps:
1. Search for an article relevant to your topic in the database.
2. Open the full record or detailed view of that article.
3. Look for a section labeled "Subjects", "Subject Terms", "Descriptors", or something similar. This will list the assigned subject headings for that article.
4. The subject headings are standardized terms used to describe the main topics covered in the article. They come from a controlled vocabulary specific to that database.
5. You can click on any of the listed subject headings to run a new search and find more articles on that same subject.
Alternatively, many databases allow you to browse or search their available subject headings before running your search.
Using subject headings is more precise than keyword searching, as it ensures you find articles specifically about your topic rather than just mentioning related terms. Subject headings reduce ambiguity and allow you to comprehensively search for a concept using all relevant terminology.
A thesaurus in a journal database is a controlled vocabulary or list of standardized subject terms used to consistently index and categorize articles within that specific database.
It is an alphabetical list of preferred terms and their relationships (synonyms, broader/narrower terms) for a particular subject area or discipline. Databases use a thesaurus to assign consistent subject headings or descriptors to articles, regardless of the terminology used by the authors. The thesaurus allows one standardized term to be chosen as the "preferred" term representing a concept. Thesauri are discipline-specific, providing relevant terminology at an appropriate level of detail for that field.
Using a thesaurus can improve search comprehensiveness by suggesting additional relevant keywords and synonyms to include. In some databases, you can search directly using the thesaurus terms, leading to more focused and efficient searches. Thesauri are regularly updated to reflect emerging concepts and terminological changes within their disciplines.
Importance of Thesauri
Further reading:
MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's (USA) controlled vocabulary thesaurus used for indexing and cataloging biomedical literature. It provides a consistent way to represent and find concepts related to health and bio-medicine, such as "cancer."
MeSH is a distinctive feature of MEDLINE, NLM's premier bibliographic database for biomedical literature, which is searchable through PubMed. Only citations featured in MEDLINE are indexed with MeSH terms, which are revised annually to reflect changes in the biomedical field.
The key aspects of MeSH are:
So in summary, MeSH is a crucial tool used by the National Library of Medicine to organize and provide access to biomedical information through its controlled vocabulary and hierarchical structure, enabling effective indexing, cataloging, and retrieval of relevant literature in MEDLINE/PubMed, etc.
Further reading:
