Enter a derived search

Overview

Use the command line search in the Search LC Authority File dialog to enter a derived search.

• A derived search uses a specific number of initial characters from the words in a name, title, or subject.
•  The derived segments of the words are separated by commas.
• The number and pattern of letters and commas tells the system which LC authority file index to search.
• The following index labels for derived searches are optional, except that they are required if you combine derived searches (e.g., to search for Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, enter pd:mitc,mar, and td:gon,wi,t,w)
  • Personal name (pd:)
  • Corporate, conference, and geographic (cd:)
  • Title (td:)
  • Topical subject (sd:)
• When WorldCat derived and keyword search results include words with diacritics, the records may be sorted out of sequence with words that do not have diacritics, whether you use the client or the browser interface.

Derived search formats

The following table gives the four types of LC authority file derived searches, the formats for entering them (number of initial letters and commas required for each), and examples:

For a list of MARC fields and subfields included in Authority file derived search indexes, see Authorities: Formats and indexes.

Tips for derived LC authority file searching

• Use a circumflex (^) for greater precision - In a derived personal name, corporate/conference name, or topical subject search, you can enter a circumflex in the second or subsequent portions of the search key. The circumflex indicates that the segment contains no additional characters.
  
  Example: To search for the corporate name Library of Congress, use a circumflex in the second segment: cd:libr,of^,c.
   
• Enter fewer than maximum characters in a segment (no circumflex) - In a derived personal name, corporate/conference name, or topical subject search, you can enter fewer characters than the maximum allowed without using the circumflex. Doing so expands the search; the system assumes that the segment may contain any additional characters or no additional characters.
  
  Example: Personal name search smit,b, retrieves records for the surname Smith with any forename beginning with B.

 Note:

• For a derived title search, the system treats an incomplete segment as if it contained a circumflex. As a result, the system retrieves only records matching the characters you enter.
• You cannot use wildcards in a derived search. Wildcards include truncation (asterisk (*)) or character masking (question mark (?) or number sign(#)).

Stopwords for derived corporate/conference/geographic name index

Omit stopwords in corporate or conference names if they appear in the first position. Include stopwords that follow a significant term.

Example: In a search for Conference on Urban Planning Information Systems, both conference and on are treated as stopwords. Enter cd:urba,pla,i or =urba,pla,i.

If all words in a corporate or conference name are stopwords, ignore the stopword list and include all words in the search key.

The following table lists stopwords for derived corporate, conference, and geographic searches:

 Note: In search results lists, the qualifier [CHILDREN'S] is displayed next to entries associated with Children's Subject authority headings (010 prefix sj and 008/15 = b) to distinguish them from other authority records.