Behold, the Subject Keyword Search!

Even if the book you started with doesn’t suggest another title on a certain subject, you can still easily find out whether your local library has what you’re looking for.

From What’s the Big Idea?, we’ll go with the example of inventor Lewis Latimer, an African-American associate of both Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.

In your library’s online catalog, bring up the Subject Keyword search option, which might look like this —


— or something like this:


In this case, just type in Lewis Latimer and click the Search button, and here’s what you get:


In these search results, you can see not only that there are two relevant titles available, but also that one of them is specifically geared toward younger readers — the one with a “J” for “Juvenile” in the Call Number.

Click into the record for this title and you get a little more information about the book itself —


— but also the really important details about where you can find it:


Ah, but what if you want to find a book that your library may not have? We’ll cover that next time.