Why Subject Guides Are Awesome

You know those times when you’re not looking for a specific item, but just have a vague idea and want to know where to browse? While the rest of the public services staff and I are more than glad to point you in the right direction, you might not realize that we’ve already done most of the work for you. Over the years, we’ve put together many subject guides that can help you in a number of ways, including giving you general call numbers. If you want to take a look, they are here:

Music
Dance
Theatre

Let’s say I want to browse the clarinet sonata section. I would simply access the woodwind music subject guide, look in the call number section for clarinet and piano, and find out that they are in M248-M252. I could use the dance subject guide to discover that dance biographies are GV1785. Although the classification system we use is highly organized, it can be confusing for browsing purposes, as the sections are very specific. The call number sections of the subject guides can really help make it easier.

But wait, there’s more! Most of the subject guides will also provide you a list of recommended books, periodicals, and websites on a given topic. While this may not help with research in a highly specialized area, it will help give you an idea of what is available in your general field of study. These lists are by no means comprehensive, so be sure not to rely solely on what we list; they are primarily there to get you started. The subject guides also list subject headings for searching the catalog, but that’s really a different blog posting altogether (that’s really a different blog posting).

These subject guides are accessible through our homepage, up in the quicklinks where it says Music – Dance – Theatre. If you would like to see more subject guides, we would be glad to make them. Just suggest a topic. I believe we should have two more coming out soon: orchestral music and performance injuries. Enjoy the guides!