Two things are coming up soon: the end of the semester, and April Fool’s Day. The latter means lots of jokes and pranks and the former means lots of studying and researching. How do these two topics coincide? Well, today we’ll show you how to search our library catalog by keyword topic to find related books- using law jokebooks (yes, they exist!) as an example.

Lawyers are the brunt of many joke punchlines. You can’t start law school without starting to hear all sorts of jokes about lawyers and legal culture. In fact, lawyer jokes are so popular that several books have been written about them.

So, say I’m writing a final paper for a class this semester, and I’ve decided that my topic will focus on lawyer jokes and humor in the legal profession. I’ve already found one good book on the topic (at the link below), but I’d like to find out if the library has any other books on the same topic.

https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9910005013702121

That’s where subject keywords come into play. If I click on the “Lawyers-- United States-- Humor” keyword, it will bring me to all of the other books in the library’s catalog that have been cataloged as belonging to that subject.

Once I do that, I see that there are 12 other books in the catalog that have “Lawyers-- United States-- Humor” as a keyword. By sorting through those, I can quickly identify other books that are likely relevant to my research, such as this one (see below link).

https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9912164078102121

Additionally, if I scroll down to the bottom of the page for the catalog listing, I see the “Items Related by Call Number” section, which might also have some useful titles I may want to peruse.

Happy researching, and remember to come ask at the reference desk if you have any questions!

Submitted by Emma E Babler on March 29, 2019

This article appears in the categories: Law Library