What are "Boolean operators?" If you search a catalog or database and receive a very large number of results, adding or limiting an additional keyword can help narrow your results and make your searches more useful. Boolean operators refer to the words "AND," "OR," and "NOT" (in capital letters) used in searches to either narrow or expand search results.
For example, a search for Japan AND Buddhism will return items that contain both concepts:
Buddhism OR "Pure Land" returns items that contain either one of the concepts or both:
Japan NOT China returns items that talk about Japan but do not mention China:
Subject Headings allow you to find relevant material grouped together including titles that do not use the keywords you may be searching.
Finding subject headings
Look at a book record in Tripod, check the subjects assigned to it, and choose whatever ones are relevant for your research. These subject headings are provided by the Library of Congress and by our catalogers in the library.
For example, the book Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism Yasuda Rijin and the Shin Buddhist tradition include a list of the following subjects.
If you click on one of these subject headings, it will give you a list of books that also share the same subject heading. Thus, Shin (Sect) > Doctrines has 13 results.