BBIH Help - Table of contents 2.8.2 Author

The Author field is available on the both the Simple search screen and the Advanced search screen.

Key features:
If you enter more than one word, the software will search for records that contain all the words in the author field, irrespective of their order. However you can modify this to search for phrases by enclosing the phrase in double inverted commas (learn more: 2.3) and you can also use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to modify how the search is carried out (learn more: 2.4.3).

You can use wildcards in this field (learn more: 2.4.1).

This field has an auto-complete list showing all the author names occurring in the Bibliography (learn more: 2.5) and, on the Advanced search screen, a Browse list (learn more: 2.6).

Hints on finding authors:
To get the best results from these features, enter the author name with the surname first, followed by the first initial, if known (e.g. Porter R or Abrahams J). Now wait for the auto-complete list to open and select the author name that you want from the list by clicking on it. On the Advanced search screen, you can also search for the author name in the Browse list (learn more: 2.6).

However, the data have been built up over time from a variety of sources, and we have not yet been able to standardize all author names, so that you may sometimes find that the same author has been described in more than one way - e.g. using surname and full forenames, using surname and first forename, or using surname and initial(s). In such cases, you can follow the surname of the author with the initial of his or her first forename and a wildcard (e.g. Abrahams J*) to get all results relating to a particular person, although such searches may occasionally return some extraneous results.

For more precise results where different versions of the name have been used for the same author, you can also combine the specific names using a Boolean OR (e.g. "Jones, J. C." OR "Jones, J. Colin"), to find records containing any of the specified names. The Browse list on the Advanced search screen makes it easy to select and combine multiple author names (learn more: 2.6).

You may also wish to search for more than one author because you are looking for a multi-authored work: in this case link the names with a Boolean AND. Again, the Browse list on the Advanced search screen makes it easy to combine multiple author names in this way (learn more: 2.6). You can also learn more about Boolean operators: 2.4.3.

Authors of edited texts: To find the authors of edited texts, search not only using the author field, but also using Person as subject on Advanced search, linking the fields with a Boolean OR. For some edited texts, only the editor/s are listed as authors and the author is listed as a Person as subject. For example, the record 'Reynolds, Noel B.; Saxonhouse, Arlene W. (ed.). Thomas Hobbes: three discourses. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press, 1995. ix, 181 p.' is not listed under Hobbes as an author, but is listed under Hobbes in the Person as subject field.