Subject searching in EThOS V2 - The British Library - … · 2 Searching for theses by subject •...

Tips for subject searching in EThOS

February 2014

www.bl.uk 2

Searching for theses by subject

• The theses held in EThOS cover every topic imaginable. One thesis might sweep across a really wide discipline or subject area, while another might focus in on a small detail such as one specific chemical structure or one aspect of 17th century footwear.

• Finding all the theses relevant to your own research can be long-winded and time consuming, but worth the effort.

• These notes aim to help users search EThOS effectively to uncover as many relevant theses as possible.

• EThOS records are also held in the British Library catalogue, Explore, which can be more effective when doing a subject search. Some tips for searching that resource are also included.

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Searching EThOS – Simple search

Use Simple Search in EThOS

This works very well for single, quite specific search terms, or a phrase.

Example 1 – caffeine

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Searching EThOS – Simple searchExample 1 – caffeine, returns 80 results. You can now browse through the records

to identify which are relevant to you. The PDF icon tells you which are

immediately available for download.

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Example 2 – Searching two or more words together. Use speech marks “..” to

search for a phrase, or just the two words together to find any records with those

two separate words.

“somerset levels” - finds 11 records on this wetland region of southwest England.

somerset levels - finds 29 records where each word can appear anywhere, as in

the example on the next slide.

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Searching two or more words together without enclosing them in speech marks

“..” finds all records where each word appears separately and anywhere in the

record. Here, the two words somerset and levels have been used:

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Simple search searches all the fields in

the record – it’s looking for your search

term in the title, abstract, university

name, author name, even in the

‘sponsor’ field and the subject keyword

field.

It searches only the record; it doesn’t

search the actual text of the full-text

thesis.

Sometimes you’ll get theses that aren’t

in your subject area – look at the 6th one

in this list – where Zola is the name of

the author and not the subject of the

thesis.

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Searching EThOS – Advanced search

Use Advanced Search in EThOS

You can make your search more focused by using the Advanced search option.

Example 1 – Search Aberdeen as the name of the awarding university, and rice as

a word to appear anywhere in the record.

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Example 1 – Aberdeen is the name

of the awarding university, and rice

can appear anywhere in the record.

26 theses are returned in the

results.

Using ‘any word’ as a search

parameter will still return some

irrelevant searches – there are two

authors called Rice with theses

from Aberdeen University.

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Other useful Advanced Search

combinations might be:

Institution name + author last name

Institution name + Issue year

If you’re searching a person’s name or

place name as a subject, using ‘thesis title’

or ‘abstract’ to define the search will ensure

you only get theses where the name is the

subject of the thesis, not the name of the

author or the name of the awarding

university.

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Defining the subject of a thesis

• Databases often have one or more

searchable fields specifically for the subject

tag that has been applied to that record

• Subject classification is a human intellectual

process, and therefore resource-intensive -

and costly. Theses aren’t usually given

subject tags when records are created

• In EThOS there are currently two fields that

could be used to search by subject tag, but

we can’t recommend that you use them as

the data they contain is incomplete and

inconsistently applied.

• The two fields are ‘LCSH’ and ‘Keyword’ –

see the search boxes shown here.

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LCSH and Subject Keyword

• LCSH – Library of Congress Subject Headings. Although this is offered as a searchable

field in the drop-down list of the Advanced Search screen, we don’t recommend you use it.

The data that this field contains is minimal, unchecked, inconsistent, and is likely to lead to

confusing and incomplete search results. We are likely to remove this as a search option

in future.

• The Subject Keyword field in EThOS contains keywords that were usually added by the

researcher or librarian at the awarding university when the thesis was deposited. The

terms used are not defined or controlled in any way, and may vary widely from one

university to another, or even between thesis records in the same institution. Still, you may

find it useful to try a Keyword search in the Advanced Search screen, as an alternative to

using the same words in a Simple Search.

• Many of the words in the Subject Keyword field are likely also to occur in the thesis

abstract, and you may achieve better results using the Abstract field to search.

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Dewey classification

• Many records started life as traditional library catalogue records – these usually have a

Dewey Decimal Subject Classification tag

• Dewey classification is useful for organising material into groups by subject - for example

on public library shelves for browsing, or filtering records in a database. It’s based on a

numerical scheme, so it can only be used for searching if you know the Dewey number for

your subject category

• You can’t search by Dewey in EThOS – it’s not really a searching system, more a library

scheme, and the Dewey field hasn’t been set up to be indexed or made searchable

• You can, however, use Dewey to search the British Library’s main catalogue, Explore.

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Searching for theses in British Library Explore

• Explore is the British Library’s main catalogue, listing 56 million items including all UK

doctoral theses that are listed in EThOS

• You can use Explore to search by a subject word or phrase, or by Dewey – the principles

are the same

• To do a subject search, go to www.explore.bl.uk. Then just make sure you are on the

“Main catalogue” tab, and not “Our website” tab

• The best approach is to start with quite a wide subject area, then use the filters to narrow

your search, e.g. ‘music’. This is illustrated in the next few slides

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A note about theses records in EThOS and Explore

• Please note there are some discrepancies between the theses listed in EThOS and those

listed in Explore

• All new records added to EThOS are also added to Explore

• But when records are deleted from EThOS (for example if we find Masters theses listed,

or duplicate records), these are not currently removed from Explore. This will occasionally

result in a broken link from the Explore record to the EThOS record

• More importantly, changes to existing EThOS records are not currently replicated in

Explore, which means that many enhancements and corrections to the EThOS records

have not yet been applied to the equivalent Explore record. This will sometimes affect the

searchability of the Explore records.

• This is the situation at February 2014, but plans are in place to correct this misalignement

between the two systems. We don’t currently have a date for completion.

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• Enter your first high-level, general

search term in the Search box, e.g.

music

• Then refine your search to limit your

results to theses by using the ‘Material

type’ filter. You’ll need to expand the list

to see the ‘theses’ option by clicking

‘Show more’ or ‘Refine further’

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• Refine the subject of your search

by using the ‘Subject’ filter, e.g.

‘folklore’

• This example now shows 59

results for Subject = music AND

folklore; Material type = theses.

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• Continue to narrow down your

results using the narrower subject

filters now available

• The Subject filter has an option to

“Refine further”. Clicking on this

will lead you to the screen shown

here, where you can select

multiple terms to refine your

search

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• Lots of filtering now applied to the

original “music” search, resulting in 14

records

• At the bottom of the list of filters in the

Explore screen (not shown here),

there are suggested links to other

items written by the same authors, or

other items on the same subject.

These might be useful to lead you in

new research directions

• And once you’re happy with your

search results, you can add them to

your personal Explore workspace as

indicated here. And from there you

can send the list to yourself or others

for future reference.

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Searching for theses using Dewey in Explore• To do a similar search using Dewey classification instead of words, use the same process

starting with a wide Dewey heading as your first search, and narrowing it down using the

filters. A list of the Dewey classification terms is here http://dewey.info/

• For example, type the Dewey number 782 (“Vocal music”) into the Search box at the top of

the Explore search page:

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Searching for theses using Dewey in Explore• We recommend that you use the

‘wild card’ asterisk to ensure your

results include not only items

classed at this number but also any

classed in related subject areas, e.g.

using the search 782* will also

include works classed at 782.23

(oratorios) and 782.42166 (rock

songs)

• Refine your search to theses only,

using “Material type” as before.

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Searching for theses using Dewey in Explore• Further subject refining can then

narrow your search results to the

required level

• Here, four items are returned for a

search where Material Type =

Theses; Dewey = 782*; and further

subject refinement = Religion.

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Searching for specific types of thesis

• We are often asked how you can search for examples of certain types of PhDs and

their final research outputs. For example:

• Creative Writing, where the main output might be a published novel or poetry

• Practice-based doctoral research, where the research itself takes the form of the production of artistic works, a film, an exhibition, drawings. There might also be a written accompaniment to this output such as a written analysis of the artistic process, or background research to frame the creative practice

• PhD by Publication. Here the submitted work consists of a collection of published or not-yet-published journal articles, book chapters or similar, brought together and introduced by extensive new writing that binds the individual papers into a whole.

• Theses are not usually tagged with any information relating to the type of work forming

the final outcome, and it isn’t easy to search for them in EThOS or Explore.

• The next few slides aim to offer some tips to help you find some useful examples.

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Searching for practice-based PhDs

• To find examples of practice-based theses in EThOS, we suggest you do a combination of searches that should retrieve at least a sample. You will have to try several combinations to get the best results.

• Use speech marks “…” to search for specific phrases rather than separate words (see Slide 6)

• Very often the full thesis is unlikely to be available for several reasons:

– If a novel or other creative writing is going to be published, the author may request an embargo of their PhD

output

– A written work that explores visual or creative practice or one that includes examples of other creative work

is very likely to contain extensive Third Party copyright content where permission may not have been sought

to make the work openly available. Inclusion of other people’s material is permitted under law when used for

an examination submission (i.e. the thesis submitted for the PhD award), but explicit permission should be

sought from the copyright owner if the Third Party content is to be “published” in a thesis that is added to an

open access repository or EThOS. For this reason, theses that contain extensive third party content

(images, photographs, illustrations, data) are often unavailable via open web resources

– A tangible document capable of being added to a database such as EThOS may not even exist. For

example, if the PhD consists of artistic works such as paintings, sculpture or musical composition, then an

abstract and the basic record of the work may be all that is available.

• The following examples may help you get started with your search, but it’s likely that you’ll get some ‘false results’ as well.

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For example:

Search “practice-based” + film

26 records retrieved, including:

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=4&uin=uk.bl.ethos.577337

where the PhD output included an experimental travelogue film.

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For example:

Search “creative writing” + fiction

28 records, including


which included a portfolio of creative writing as well as a critical component of the PhD submission

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For example:

Search “creative practice” + illustration

8 records, including


for which paintings formed part of the final PhD submission.

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Other examples:

• Liberty Horses (a novel) : narrative and cultural analysis in postmodern English and American texts, EThOS ID 437422

• Re-Writing The City: The Value Of Psychoanalytic Perspectives To The Creative Writer, EThOS ID485973

• Dark Aemilia and inventing Shakespeare, EThOS ID 571794

• Mr Loverman and the Men in Black British fiction : the representation of Black men in Black British fiction, EThOS ID 586876

• (PhD by Publication): The role of the scholar-facilitator in generating practice knowledge to inform and enhance the quality of relationship-based social work practice with children and families, EThOS ID 523769

• U know them by their fruit: unfinalizing the 'extreme other self' in documentary filmmaking, EThOS ID 577334

• Interrogating the live : a DJ perspective, EThOS ID 525086. Includes DVDs and CDs of live performance.

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Useful links

• http://ethos.bl.uk

• About British Library Explore

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/search/about.html

• British Library Higher Education newsletter

http://email.bl.uk/LMBW8QD3_bUV1OPYjVeV4fgMbENZPiJ

m/WebView.aspx

• General EThOS enquiries - [email protected]

Subject searching in EThOS V2 - The British Library - … · 2 Searching for theses by subject •...

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