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HIST 100: Soundscapes and Societies (Fall 2025)

Picking a topic and finding keywords

Suppose my topic is the role and impact of sound in library design

  1. Identify keywords
    1. Libraries, design, sound
  2. Consider synonyms.
    1. library, libraries
    2. Design, architecture
    3. sound, acoustics 
  3. Use Boolean searching to create a basic search command
    1. Libraries AND sound AND design
    2. Libraries AND acoustics AND design
    3. "Library design" AND sound
    4. Library AND acoustics
  4. For our purposes, let's try:
    1. Librar* AND (design OR architecture) AND (Sound OR acoustics)
      1. this covers 5 different searches at once

 

I might also just try a simple search like "library soundscapes" or maybe librar* AND soundscape*