Sure, it might be easy to find a book on your topic. But how do you know it's solid work? Or how it fits into the current research community? And what if you're overwhelmed by your Franklin searching ... and all you want is a good book on your topic? These suggestions will help you to answer these questions.
SEARCH HINT! In a fulltext database - PsycCRITIQUES, JSTOR, and MegaFILE, for example - overwhelming results can be winnowed by adding this synonym set to your search:
(recommended OR excellent OR outstanding OR "must read" OR important OR landmark*)
Even if the review's subject book is not great, perhaps the review will mention a book that shouldn't be missed!
Franklin:Catalog uses Library of Congress subject headings and subject heading subdivisions to describe books about specific age groups and other subpopulations.
The subject phrase "Young Adults" is used in Franklin:Catalog for "works on people in the general age range of eighteen through twenty-five years." The subject word "Youth" is used in Franklin:Catalog for "works on the time of life between thirteen and twenty-five years, as well as on people in this general age range, including teenagers and young adults." Works on specific age-gender groups will be described with "Young Men" or "Young Women". Works on specific age-category groups will be described inconsistently: "Puerto Rican Young Men", "Young Gay Men", and "Young Adult Consumers".
You can use Keyword Expert searching in Franklin:Catalog to pull together several of these terms for a more inclusive search result:
Keyword Expert = subject:("young adults" OR "young adult" OR "young men" OR "young women" OR youth)
And you can catch a lot of the inconsistent subject headings forms with this Keyword Expert whopper (it uses proximity commands to search for one word separated by two words from the second word):
Keyword Expert = subject:("young adult"~2 OR "young adults"~2 OR "young men"~2 OR "young women"~2 OR youth)
Age-specific Franklin:Catalog subject headings include:
Franklin, the Penn Library's online catalog, lists the millions of books, journal titles, videos, and other materials held in Penn's campus libraries or available online to Penn readers.
Franklin uses a large array of Library of Congress subjects headings to describe books on friendship and attraction. You can search Franklin using these subject headings in several ways:
Subject Heading Browse (LCSH) = interpersonal relations
Subject Heading Keyword = friendship "case studies"
Keyword Expert = subject:(friendship) AND subject:(youth OR teenage* OR adolescen* OR "high school students")
Here's a large selection of relevant Library of Congress Subject Headings, with "Subject Heading Keyword" searches in Franklin:
Franklin also uses Library of Congress subject heading subdivisions to describe methodologies or data sources:
| methodology | anecdotes | autobiography |
| "case studies" | correspondence | "cross-cultural studies" |
| "longitudinal studies" | "personal narratives" | testing |
You can whittle down very large search results by AND'ing "aspects" that describe a work's disciplinary orientation:
| attitudes | "health aspects" | "moral and ethical aspects" |
| "physiological aspects" | "psychological aspects" | "sex differences" |
| "social aspects" |
