Author Search
Author searching in Minerva lets you locate materials by the name of authors, editors, composers, translators, arrangers, illustrators, and other people associated with a title.
Authors can also be organizations, institutions, governments, government bodies, or the names of symposia.
Search limits are not available for Author searches. Boolean operators (and, or, not) do not function in Author searches. Results are displayed in a Search Results List and may be browsed, forward and backward.
You may also wish to try Author (sorted by Title) when searching for works by prolific authors or composers, such as Shakespeare or Mozart.
Note:
If you are looking for materials about someone (real or fictional) or about a government body, company, or organization, use the Subject search option.
Search Strategies:
- Searches for author's names are automatically truncated and retrieve catalog records beginning with the words, word roots or phrases entered. Do not use the question mark (?) for truncation when doing author searches.
Personal author/creator
- Enter the author or creator's last name first, followed by the first name. A comma is not necessary. e.g., twain mark
- If you are uncertain of the spelling of the last name, enter as much as you know, and omit first names: niet for nietzsche friedrich wilhelm
- Retain the hyphen in a hyphenated name: levi-strauss
- For names with connectives (van, von, der), in general follow the conventions of the person's country or language: (e.g. for Americans, include the connective: van buren, abigail and for Europeans omit the connective: gogh, vincent van).
Group authors/creators (government agencies, organizations, conferences)
- As with individual authors, type or enter enough of the name to distinguish it.
- In many instances, department is abbreviated to dept; search using both forms to ensure that all relevant records are retrieved.
- Search hierarchical names in full descending order: catholic church diocese of louisville
- Search both acronyms and full names to retrieve all relevant catalog records. Search apa as well as american psychological association.
- Proceedings of conferences, meetings, etc. can be found by searching on the full name of the conference: national symposium on arts education
Author Search Examples:
| Name type . . . |
Search Example . . . |
| personal name |
austen jane or naipaul v s |
| compound last name |
dos passos john |
| government agency |
internal revenue service or department of the interior |
| organization |
john f kennedy center for the performing arts |
| company |
bristol myers squibb |
| conference |
conference on american indian languages |
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| Alternative Search Options:
If you do not find what you are looking for using an Author (sorted by name) search, try a Keyword Search or an Advanced Search and type in whatever information you know. For example, if you do not know the specific name of a conference, try a Keyword search using what you do know (e.g., part of the name of the conference, location, and date: peace and paris and 1920.) |
References and Scope Notes:
In search results, some retrieved headings will not link directly to catalog records, but will link instead to related headings or scope notes (marked with the  icon) as illustrated in the screen below.
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