Searching By Author or Editor

This section continues to develop your ability to find known books. Here you'll learn to search by author/editor names giving you more options when searching.

We will now look for a book by the author Rick Ash. It's a book about histology.

In Library Search to find books by the author Rick Ash type ash r Make sure you have selected the Only Books tab, or only books radio button. Make sure with my exact phrase is showing. Select as author/creator from the drop down menu. Click on the Search button.

It's best to search for the author or editor's surname and first initial.
Older books may not have full names of authors or editors so using the first initial is more reliable than using surname and first name.

Library Search will find the books in Relevance order.
In this example the book you are looking for turns up at the top of the list, but sometimes you might have to change the sort order.

Now you could click on Locations or Details to help you find the book or look at chapter headings etc.

Can I find a book if I don't know the first author or first editor?

Looking for an author in Library Search will work on any of the authors/editors of a book as long as there are no more than 3 authors or editors.
For books with 4 or more authors or editors knowing the first author or editor is the best way of finding the book in an Author's Name search.
 

What if the author is an organization rather than an individual?

You can search on corporate authors such as

European Organization for Caries Research

Library Search will produce a list if there are items by that corporate author in the Library.

Go to the next section of the tutorial Other Searches

Back to the previous section of the tutorial called Call Numbers

Back to the tutorial Table of Contents