What is a keyword?
- A keyword is an informative word used to describe the content of a document.
- For example, keywords are words/phrases you can put into a search bar that will pull up books, articles, and other library resources with content relevant to the entered word/phrase.
If you are looking for financial information or ratios about a publicly traded company, it will be difficult to find that information in a traditional database using a keyword search. Instead, you will need to navigate to a database such as Mergent Online (linked in the databases box below), and then go level-by-level to get to that information using faceted searching. This is similar to a video game in that you will not progress by entering a cheat code, but instead by working through a pathway to get the information.
What is faceted searching?
- Faceted searches allow users to reduce the number of search results quickly to get to the desired resources. You typically narrow the search by selecting different terms and options which narrow the search for you.
- Amazon is an example of a system that utilizes faceted searching.
- On the side of the page, there are boxes where you can select filters such as price range, subscribe and save, prime delivery, size, etc.
- By selecting these boxes, you are narrowing the search to results that will be helpful to you.