Game Studies

Each book in the library is given at least one authorized Library of Congress Subject Heading. You can search for the authorized heading(s) associated with your topic in the LC Subject Authorities.

Books and other works will likely be classified under the subject heading Games. However, there are numerous related headings, including narrower terms that may be used instead.

Specific games with a long enough history (like tug-of-war, shuffleboard, Mah Jong, Monopoly, etc.), may be included as subjects under their respective names, however you may find it more useful to search these as keywords, rather than subjects.

There are also categories of games that are not represented by works in the collections, but may serve as interesting or inspiring topics of research. Examples include Adventure Games, Carnival Games, Dice Games, Drinking Games, Pinball Machines, Serious Games, etc.

Each heading, whether Games generally or a narrower category, will often have subheadings to indicate the focus of the source. Some common subheadings include:

It may also be useful to combine meaningful keywords and subject terms if precise topics are not represented by one of the subject headings above. Here are some examples of what that might look like: