Women's Studies

Using the Library’s Catalogs

CATNYP is the online catalog of The New York Public Library’s four Research Libraries.  It is easily accessible via the World Wide Web at http://catnyp.nypl.org.  For general instructions on using CATNYP, please consult Using the Library's Online Catalog. The following information is specific to the subject of Women’s Studies.

CATNYP allows searching by author, title, keyword, and subject.  A subject search will generally yield more precise results, but only if you know the appropriate Library of Congress subject headings for your topic.

Materials on women may be listed under the specific subject heading of interest, with Women as a subdivision:

            World War, 1939-1945 Women
            Employment Women

Additionally, items may be found using Women as a subject heading, followed by various subdivisions:

            Women
            Women Africa
            Women Air Pilots
            Women Labor

Some additional useful subject headings include:

           Suffrage
           Feminism
           Feminist Theory
           Minority Women

A useful source to use when searching subjects in CATNYP is Women in LC's Terms (see Dickstein, Ruth under Background Research—Dictionaries).

If you do not know the Library of Congress subject headings for your topic, it will be easier to perform a word search. A word search will generally retrieve more items, though many of them may not be relevant. Please note that in a word search, “woman” and “women” will generally yield different results. You can search for both simultaneously by using a “?” in place of the variable letter (see below).  When performing a word search, be sure to use the word "and" between each term:

           Wom?n and politics
           Wom?n and germany
           Wom?n and power and struggle

After you retrieve your results in a word search, scan the record of one of the items. You will see the item's subject headings listed, and can then perform a subject search, if desired.

If visiting the Library, you may wish to search the Dictionary Catalog, most of whose entries now appear in CATNYP.  In the Dictionary Catalog, the most useful term to use is Woman with appropriate subdivisions:

         Woman Employment
         Woman Suffrage

If you need assistance locating materials, please see a reference librarian, at the reference desk in Room 315.  If you are not in the library, you may also e-mail us for assistance at grdref@nypl.org.