ZONE SEARCHING AND SEARCH REFINEMENT
Databases are divided into multiple fields to facilitate access to their contents (“author,” “title,” “year,” “publisher, ” etc.). Knowing the available fields can help you to zero in on specific items you are searching for.
The zones have important implications for subject searching as well, providing points of varying precision and comprehensiveness that can be variously combined for effective results. Most indexed databases come equipped with a controlled vocabulary, known variously as “subject headings,” “tags,” “index terms,” “descriptors,” and more. Those terms are provided by the indexers who create the database. Searching the controlled vocabulary relies on the structure of the databases - from the word choice by authoritative bodies like the Library of Congress to the metadata of each resource - so while controlled vocabulary searches can be exhaustive, it can feel less tailored to your project than a keyword search. Get to know the controlled vocabulary terms by looking beyond the title or author in each catalog record; while some intuitive, others may seem less precise or even arcane depending on the classification scheme.
The opposite extreme is provided by where databases allow for searching of the full text of indexed content. With access to the entirety of the database content, you can search out references to a particular person or phenomenon that would never rise to the level of an index term, or look for phrases or co-occurrences of terminology that reflect ideas or concepts difficult to express in a single descriptor. Full-text searching, however, holds out the possibility of more comprehensive results while often producing a wide range of less relevant content. Being able to temper a full text search with a controlled-vocabulary search can often help to focus your search.
In between is a set of cataloging data of more immediate focus – often referred to in databases as “citation and abstract,” “keywords,” or “all fields except full text.”
The combined set of these fields can be likened to a target, with the concentric areas of increasingly sharp focus. It is usually easiest to identify and then combine them by going the advanced screen of any database, which usually provides several boxes for search terms, equipped with a drop-down menu to allow you to select the zone in which particular terms should be placed.
Closely related is the ability to refine a search by selecting some broad category – language, format, date, academic level, etc. These are often available as drop down categories on an advanced or even simple search screen, but in other databases are presented as check boxes alongside the result list.