Skip to Main Content

DANC 10453 - Dance in World Cultures: Where/how to find...

Finding dance materials in the library building and online

Here is a guide you can print and take with you, or access on your mobile device, to help you navigate the library, search, find and request materials - including electronic materials.  If you have any trouble, the library staff is here to help!

Dance research librarian

Profile Photo
Laura Ruede
Contact:
TCU Box 298400, Fort Worth, TX 76129
817-257-7774
Website

A fishing expedition: ways to find search terms

Developing a search vocabulary can be a real challenge! With many forms of dance there are not necessarily standard terms, or even standardized spellings. Arriving at searchable terms is particularly difficult when a term or phrase for a dance derives from a foreign language, which can be transliterated in many different ways. Taking some soundings with some initial searches can help to develop ideas about terminology.

Example topic: korean sword dance

Initial searches

Web searches: korea dance sword  ; korean sword dance  --> yielded terms geommu or geom - mu

International Encyclopedia of Dancekorea sword dance  --> yielded same term spelled differently: kommu ; other sources added kom - mu  or sometimes just Kom or kom. (IED's article on Korea did not mention sword dance; the Lee Mae-bang article did.)

A library catalog search for geommu OR "geom mu" OR kommu OR "kom mu"  yields two books with suitable chapters.

similar search in FrogScholar, using various Content Type Selections, yields much more.