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TALON MODULE 5: Using the Library Catalog
Author and Title Searches

Author searches require that you type the person's last name first and then type the first name. The catalog is not case sensitive, meaning that it interprets both capital and lower case letters in exactly the same way, so that you need not capitalize names. It is not necessary to insert a comma between the last and first names or to type the entire name. For example, if you are looking for works written by William Shakespeare, you may enter it as any of these variations:

Shakespeare William
Shakespeare, William
shakespeare, william
shakespeare will
shakespeare w

Be careful about the order and spelling of the name. Many multiple word or hyphenated names are not listed under the first part of the last name. Vincent van Gogh is listed as Gogh, Vincent van. Variations also occur in name spellings due to translation or transliteration (translation from one alphabet into another). Some individuals, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Muammar Qaddafi, may have 20 or more possible spellings! In general, cross-references from the variations will send you to a single spelling.

Author searches look not only for the names of individual authors and editors but also for organizations that may have responsibility for a work. These are called corporate authors . Using the above Shakespeare search, if you just enter Shakespeare, you will retrieve items by the Shakespeare Association of America and the Shakespeare Oxford Society as well as materials by William Shakespeare.

Title searches look for an exact match to the title. Athough you may leave the ending words off, you may not leave out words at the beginning or in the middle except in one case. If the title begins with an article (The, A, An), you must begin the title search with the word immediately after the article. Never begin the title with the words The, A or An.

Examples:

AUTHOR SEARCH - six slides

TITLE SEARCH - five slides

Try your own searches:

OPEN UMW LIBRARIES WEBSITE HERE


Concept & Design by Laurie Preston
Content Authored by
Laurie Preston & Jack Bales
Reviewed/Updated
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