Search Challenge (10/1/14): YOU make up the challenge!

As you can tell, I'm still catching up.  I've got a queue of about 4 posts I still need to make to get back up to real-time, so I'm going to start by posting an unusual Search Challenge for today.  

The Challenge today is for YOU to create a Challenge of your own!  It's a Reverse-Challenge day.  

Let me scope out the Challenge.  

First, I'd like to tell you something about how to search in Google Books that you probably don't know.  

Then, after you've got that, you get to explore a bit and then post a Challenge of your own into the comments. 

On Friday, I'll talk about what happened, and what we found out collectively.  Ready?  

1.  How to Search Google Books Search by Subject Heading 

One of the nicest (and least known) of all the features in Google Books is "Search by Subject Heading."  That is, you can use a subject heading string (found in either the Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings list, OR the BISAC subject headings) 

For example, if you go to Google Books and do the query: 

     [ armor subject:"World War, 1939-1945" ]

The quoted phrase "Word War, 1939-1945" is the official subject heading name of that war.  

The big advantages of doing a search like this is that you can use pretty common terms (say, "armor") and get search results back in the context of that subject heading.  If you just go to Google Books and search for [ armor ], you'll get back a lot of results, few of which have anything to do with World War II.  But by contrast, this is what you get back from this search--targeted, relevant, focused results:  

You could do the same thing and use the the BISAC subject heading:

    [ armor subject:"HISTORY / Military / World War II" ]

See the difference? The results are more-or-less the same, but both subject catalogs have slightly different ways of representing the world.  (More on this in a later post.) 

How do you get to the subject headings listing?  Well, telling you to search would be too obvious, so let me give you the links and save you one search: 

     Library of Congress Subject Headings search interface

     BISAC Subject Headings browse interface 

They're very different interfaces.  Here they are side-by-side: 

As you can see, the LC subject headings page has a search interface, while the BISAC (which is run by the BISG) has more of a click-to-browse style.  Both are useful; it depends on if you need any prompting as you do your search for a subject heading.  

Once you've found your subject heading entry, you just copy it out (see the text highlighted in blue below?  that's what you copy), and then paste into the quotes after the subject: keyword as shown above. 

Then, the query [ armor ] makes a LOT more sense when the scope of books being searched are those tagged with the LC subject heading "World War, 1939-1945"  (which is a phrase for WW2 that you'd never guess).  

With me so far?  

Now for today's Challenge:  

2.  Can you create a Search Challenge that highlights the use of the  subject: operator in Google Books? 

That is, you get to be me! 

Ideally, you'll write a Challenge that requires the use of a search in Google Books that needs the subject: + subject-heading method to be solvable.  

Once you've written your Challenge, post it to the comments below, and let's see if we can figure out what really interesting kinds of subject-headings (and their uses) we can discover. 

Sample Challenge:  "For today's Search Challenge, can you find a book about insects that feed on other insects and can cause sterility?" 

Sample Answer:  Using LC, I searched for "parasite insect" and learned that there is a subject heading called "Insects--Parasites" (the double dashes are important!).  Searching Google Books with 

     [ subject:"Insects--Parasites" sterility ] 

led me to a few books, one of which is Parasites in Social Insects, by Paul Schmid-Hempel, 1998. (Check out the cover for an astonishing photo.) In this book the author notes that some wasp species in Europe are parasitized by a variety of nematode that causes "parasitic castration" leading to infertility. (And be sure to search in the book for the phrase "brain worm," and learn something amazing about certain ant parasites that cause huge changes in ant behavior.)  

You, of course, should pursue your own interests and discover what wonderful things you can find in Google Books by using this new search method.  

Be sure to tell us how to solved your Challenge, and tell us of any interesting discoveries you made along the way.  

Search (and create Challenges) on!