OCLC Connexion: Searching authorities quick reference

Find a quick reference guide for searching authority records in Connexion.

OCLC Connexion interface

Use the Connexion client (Windows-based software).

Multiscript support for non-Latin script variant headings (for NACO participants): The following non-Latin scripts are supported for adding variant name headings and notes in authority records and can be used for constructing search terms: Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean. You can enter scripts in the client by installing languages and keyboards using Windows® settings. See documentation for the client for details.

Search or browse authority records

Search client

Open the Authorities Search window:

  1. Client: Click Authorities > Search > LC Names and Subjects, or click Connexion client search authorities button, or press <Shift><F2>.
  2. For a command line search: In the Authorities Search window, enter a complete search or browse string in correct search syntax in the Command Line Search box for any of these search types:
    • Numeric search
    • Text keyword search
    • Derived search
    • Text browse (scan an index)
    Or
    For a guided search: In the Authorities Search window, use boxes and lists in the Keyword/Numeric area to enter search term(s) and select index(es) and/or Boolean operators. The system creates the correct search syntax from your entries. Enter one of these search types:
    • Numeric search
    • Text search using keywords
     Note: You must open a different window for guided browsing.
  3. (Optional). Click a check box to show See and/or See Also references in search results.
  4. Click OK or press <Enter>.

Guided browsing in the client

Open the Authorities Browse window:

  1. Client: Click Authorities > Browse > LC Names and Subjects, or click Connexion client browse authorities button, or press <Alt><F2>.
  2. Enter a browse term in the Browse for box. Do not precede the term with the Scan (sca) command or an index label.
  3. Select an index from the drop-down list.
  4. (Optional). Type a subheading term in the Expanded Term box to limit results to headings that contain the term in a subheading.
  5. Click OK or press <Enter>.

Batch process searches

Construct and save command line searches and process them all at once in a batch (available in the client only):

  1. In the Connexion client, click Batch > Enter Authority Search Keys or press <Alt><B><A>.
  2. Select a local file for storing the searches you enter (default: DefaultAuth.auth.db).
  3. Enter any search type in the Query box, except browse terms, using full search syntax in the same way you construct a command line search, using full search syntax.
  4. Click Add or press <Enter>.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to enter more searches.
     Note: There is no limit on the number of searches you can enter. However, the maximum number of search results you can download is 150 records. (You can set the number of results to download, in the range 1 to 150, in Tools > Options > Batch tab.)
  6. When finished, click Save.
  7. When ready, run batch processing (Batch > Process Batch).

Command line versus guided searching and browsing

Command line search or browse

Experienced searchers can use the Command Line Search box to enter a complete search or browse string in correct search syntax (that is, enter all parts of a search or browse query in a single string in correct order and with correct spacing).

To use the Command Line Search box:

  1. In the client, click Authorities > Search > LC Names and Subjects.
  2. In the Command Line Search box of the Search window, enter a keyword text or numeric search, a derived search, or a browse query in full syntax, following these guidelines:
    • Precede a browse term with the Scan command (sca) followed by a space, but use no command for a search.
      Example: sca pn:vivaldi (browse) but pn:vivaldi (search)
    • Precede a search or browse term with a 2-letter index label followed by a colon (:) (see the pn: in the example above).
    • The index label and colon are optional for a derived search if it is the first or only search term.
      • Example: To search for the name heading Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, enter moza,wol,a or pd:moza,wol,a.
      • Exception: Corporate/conference/geographic names require a preceding equal sign (=) or index label.
      • Example: To search for the corporate name heading Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory, enter =envi,mon,s or cd:envi,mon,s.
  3. (Optional). Combine searches in the Command Line Search box by entering Boolean operators and, or, or not between them. Do not combine browse queries. See more details about Boolean operators in following pages.
    Example: su:carillon or su:bells
  4. (Optional). Use the truncation symbol (*) and wildcard symbols (# or ?) in search terms in place of characters to retrieve different forms of a word.

    Do not use truncation or wildcards for browsing. Do not use them in non-Latin script searches.

    Required if you use these symbols: Precede a symbol by at least three characters.

    Example: ti:librar*

 Note: For batch searching in the Connexion client, enter complete search strings as you do for the Command Line Search box (note that you cannot batch-process browse queries).

Guided search

Searchers who do not want or need to remember index labels and syntax rules can use guided searching and browsing (that is, you enter the parts of a search and let the system create the correct syntax).

To enter a guided numeric or keyword search:

  1. In the client, click Authorities > Search > LC Names and Subjects.
  2. In the Keyword/Numeric Search area of the Search window, enter a keyword text or numeric search term in any Search for box.
  3. (Optional). Combine search terms.

    To search for multiple terms in a single index:
    1. Enter the terms in a single Search for box and combine them with Boolean operators and, or, or not.
      Example: pn:woolf, Virginia and ti:between the acts
    2. Select an index from the list adjacent to the Search for box.

    To search for multiple terms in multiple indexes:
    1. Enter up to 5 search terms in separate Search for boxes.
    2. Select an index from the list to the right of each term.
    3. Select and, or, or not from lists to each additional Search for box following the first.
  4. (Optional). Use truncation and wildcard symbols in search terms as described in step 4 for command line searching.

 Note: You cannot enter a derived search or a browse query in the Keyword/Numeric Search area.

Guided browsing

To enter a guided browse query:

  1. In the client, click Authorities > Browse > LC Names and Subjects.
    Or
  2. Follow the instructions for Guided browsing in the client.

 Note:

  • All search examples in the following sections are shown in command line format (that is, in full search syntax).

Guidelines and examples for search types

Numeric search

Guidelines

  • ARN: Enter all digits. Leading zeroes are optional.
  • LCCN: Enter the year part of the LCCN (2 or 4 digits) and control number, with or without the hyphen. Leading zeroes in the control number are optional. Include or omit an alphabetic prefix.
  • ISBN: Enter 10 digits or 13 digits, no hyphens (ISBNs are stored as both 10- and 13-digit numbers). Leading zeroes are optional. Type x (final character) in upper- or lowercase.
  • ISSN: Enter 4 digits, hyphen, 4 digits. Type final x in upper- or lowercase.
  • Numeric indexes are unavailable for browsing.
  • Tip: Use the LCCN or the ARN for the most precise search.

Examples

Index Example
ARN (an:) an:01450635 or an:1450635
LCCN (ln:) ln:78-5201 or ln:785201 or ln:78-005201
ln:2001-12345 or ln:200112345 or ln:2001-012345
ln:82-12 or ln:8212 or ln:82-000012
ln:sh85-61704 or ln:8561704 or ln:85-061704
ISBN (bn:) bn:188610111 or bn:978188610111
ISSN (in:) in:9999-4444x

Text keyword search

Guidelines

  • Search terms can be words or phrases.
  • Omit prepositions and articles.
  • If you enter diacritics, the system removes them automatically.
  • Do not enter subfield codes.
  • Include the comma between the parts of a name.
  • All keyword indexes are also used for browsing.

Examples

Index Example
keyword search		 Example
browse query
Children's Subjects sj:fantasy sca sj:fantasy
Corporate/Conference Names cn:habitat for humanity sca cn:habitat for humanity
Genre ge:fiction films sca ge:fiction films
Geographic Names gg:fort victoria, zimbabwe sca gg:fort victoria, zimbabwe
LC Names nw:corgi sca nw:corgi
LCSH su:cattle sca su:cattle
Personal Name pn:pascal, blaise sca pn:pascal, blaise
Subdivision Headings sb:criticism sca sb:criticism
Title ti:creative mind sca ti:creative mind
Topicals sp:literary sca sp:literary

Browse (scan an index)

How browsing differs from searching

  • Searching matches a term anywhere in indexed fields/subfields.
  • Browsing matches your term or phrase exactly, character by character, left to right, starting with the first character in an indexed field/subfield.

Guidelines

  • In the Command Line Search box, include the Scan command (sca) and an index label followed by a colon.
    Example: sca pn:monet, claude
    Exclude the command, index label, and colon from guided browsing.
  • Guided browsing matches all forms (root) of a heading or you can also enter a subheading (expanded) term to find instances of the heading that have the specified subheading term.
    Example: For guided browsing, enter the heading roads in the Browse for box and then enter construction in the Expanded Term box.
  • For a personal name, include the comma after the surname.
    Example: sca pn:mozart, wolfgang amadeus
  • Omit initial articles (a, an, the, and non-English equivalents).
  • If you enter diacritics, special characters, and/or subfield codes, the system removes them before processing the browse query.
  • Browsing provides automatic truncation. Type only as many characters or words as needed.
    Example: For the title Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, type sca ti:let us now praise
  • Do not combine terms or use truncation or wildcards for browsing.
  • If you are unsure of an exact browse term, use a keyword search.

See more examples of browsing in the preceding table of keyword examples.

Derived search

How to construct a derived search

Enter a specific number of initial characters from the words in a name, title, or subject, combined with commas in a pattern unique to each index, as shown in this table:

Derived index (label) Number of characters/pattern Examples
Personal Name (pd:) 4,3,1 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Type moza,wol,a or pd:moza,wol,a
Corporate/Conference/Geographic Name (cd:) =4,3,1 American Chemical Society
Type =chem,soc, or cd:chem,soc,

Notes:
  • American is a stopword (omitted).
  • Pattern requires 2 commas, though search term is only 2 words.
  • Preceding = or index label is required.
Title (td:) 3,2,2,1 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Type adv,of,hu,f or td: adv,of,hu,f
Subject (sd:) 5,3 civil rights
Type civil,rig or sd:civil,rig

Guidelines

  • Even if a search term has fewer words than required for an index pattern, type all required commas.
    Example: For the title Mrs. Dalloway, type mrs,da,, or td:mrs,da,,.
  • For a corporate, conference, or geographic name, you must precede the search term with the index label or an equal sign(=).
  • Do not use non-Latin scripts in derived searches.
  • Enter derived searches in the Command Line Search boxonly.
  • Omit stopwords in corporate, conference, and geographic namesif they appear in the first position. Include them otherwise.

Stopwords for Corporate/Conference/Geographic Names indexes

&
a
American
an
and
Association
at
Australia
Board
Bureau
Canada
College
Colloquium
Commission
Committee		 Commonwealth
Conference
Congress
Council
Department
Dept.
Division
East
Federal
for
France
Great Britain
House
in
India		 Institute
International
Joint
Meeting
National
North
of
Office
on
Organization
Parliament
School
Seminar
Senate
Society		 South
State
Subcommittee
Symposium
the
U.N.
U. N.
United Nations
United States
University
U.S.
U. S.
West
Workshop
All names of U.S. states

Guidelines for stopwords

  • Omit stopwords from the first segment of a corporate, conference, or geographic name (cd: or gg: indexes), but include them in other segments.
  • Use a stopword if it is the only word.
  • Use all stopwords if a search term consists of only stopwords.

Examples of searches that omit or include stopwords

Search for ... Enter ...
Great Britain Forestry Commission
(Omit “Great Britain"—in first position.)		 cd:fore,com,
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
(Include “Commission” and “on”—not in first position.)		 cd:afri,com,o
India
(Include the word, even though it is in first position—it is the only word.)		 cd:indi,,
Indiana State University
(Use all words—they are all stopwords.)		 cd:indi,sta,u

Boolean operators, truncation, and wildcards

Boolean operators

Enter Boolean operators to combine full searches in the Command Line or enter in a single guided search box to combine multiple terms to search a single index.

Operator What the operator does
and Finds records containing all terms anywhere in a record.
Example: pn:woolf, virginia and ti:between the acts
or Finds records containing any single term or all terms.
Example: su:carillon or su:bells
not Excludes records containing the term that follows not.
Example: su:civil war not su:american

Truncation and wildcards

Use the truncation symbol in search terms to retrieve variant endings.

Symbol How to use
* (asterisk) Add to the end of a word to retrieve variant endings
Example: ti:librar* retrieves library, libraries, librarians, etc.

Use wildcard symbols in search terms to mask characters or find variant spellings.

Symbol How to use
# Add to the end of a word to retrieve variant endings.
Example: ti:invest* retrieves investor, investment, investment fraud
? Replace multiple unknown characters in a word
Example: ti:emp?e retrieves empire, empale, emphasize
?n Specify the number of characters to replace (where n = the number of characters, 1-9)
Example: ti:str?3 retrieves street, stream, streak, stride, strait

Guidelines

  • Do not use Boolean operators with browse terms.
  • Precede truncation and wildcard symbols by at least 3 characters. (For example: The expressions as* and e?er do not work.)
  • Do not use truncation or wildcards in browse terms or in non-Latin script searches.
  • As an alternative to using truncation and wildcard symbols in search terms, use browsing instead for automatic truncation.

Indexes

Numeric search indexes

The following numeric search indexes cannot be used for browsing:

Index name (label) Fields and subfields indexed
ARN (an:) 001
LCCN (ln:) 010 a z
667 a (see note following this table)
ISBN (bn:) 020 a z
ISSN (in:) 022 a y z
ISSN-L (ik:) 022 l m

 Note: Indexing field 667 for LCCNs helps identify personal names that were previously in undifferentiated authority records, but were subsequently established as separate authority records, using unique control numbers. The index matches only the word undifferentiated (in upper- or lowercase) in field 667. LCCNs in field 667 are not compared or verified with LCCNs in field 010.

Text indexes (keyword search and browse)

The following indexes are available for both searching and browsing, unless noted:

 

Index name (label) Fields indexed Subfields indexed (keyword) Subfields indexed (browse-root)
Cartographic Data (cm:) 034 d e f g z Not applicable
Cataloging Source (cs:) 040 a c d Not applicable
Children's Subjects (sj:) 046 f g f g
100, 400, 500, 700 a b c d e f h j k l m n o p q r s t v x y z a b c d f h j k l m n o p q r s t
110, 410, 510, 710 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s t v x y z a b c d f g h j k l m n o p r s t
111, 411, 511, 711 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s t v x y z a b c d f g h j k l m n p q s t
130, 430, 530, 730 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s t v x y z a d f g h k l m n o p r s t
150, 450, 550, 750 a b v x y z a b
151, 451, 551, 751 a v x y z a
180, 480, 580, 780 v x y z v x y z
181, 481, 581, 781 v x y z (781 z) v x y z (781 z)
182, 482, 582, 782 v x y z v x y z
185, 485, 585, 785 v x y z v x y z
Corporate/Conference Name (cn: or co:) 110, 410, 510, 710 a b c d e n a b c d e n
111, 411, 511, 711 a c d e j n q a b c d e j n q
151, 451, 551, 751 a a
Descriptive Rules (dx:) 040 e Not applicable
Entity Attribute (en:) 046 f g k l s t Not applicable
368 a b c Not applicable
370 a b c e f g s t Not applicable
371 a b c d e m s t z Not applicable
372, 373, 374, 375 a s t Not applicable
376 a b c s t Not applicable
377 a l Not applicable
378 q Not applicable
380, 381, 384 a Not applicable
382 a b d p v Not applicable
383 a b c d e Not applicable
Genre (ge:) 155, 455, 555, 755 a v x y z a
Geographic Names (gg:) 151, 451, 551, 751 a v x y z a
Keyword (kw:) All variable fields All subfields Not applicable
LC Names (nw:)

See Note 1 below.		 046 f g f g
100, 400, 500, 700 a b c d f h j k l m n o p q r s t a b c d e j q
110, 410, 510, 710 a b c d f g h k l m n o p r s t a b c d e n
111, 411, 511, 711 a c d e f g h j k l n p q s t a c d e j n q
151, 451, 551, 751 a a
130, 430, 530, 730 a d f g h k l m n o p r s t a d g h k l m n o p r s t
LCSH (su:)

See Note 2 below.		 046 f g f g
100, 400, 500, 700 a b c d e f h j k l m n o p q r s v x y z a b c d f h j k l m n o p q r s t
110, 410, 510, 710 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s v x y z a b c d f g h j k l m n o p r s t
111, 411, 511, 711 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s v x y z a b c d e f g h j k l n p q s t
130, 430, 530, 730 a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s v x y z a d f g h k l m n o p r s t
150, 450, 550, 750 a b v x y z a b
151, 451, 551, 751 a v x y z a
180, 480, 580, 780 v x y z v x y z
181, 481, 581, 781 v x y z (781 z) v x y z (781 z)
182, 481, 582, 782 v x y z v x y z
185, 485, 585, 785 v x y z v x y z
Notes (nt:) 663, 664 a b t  Not applicable
665, 666, 667, 675,
688		 a Not applicable
670, 678 a b u Not applicable
680, 681, 682 a i Not applicable
Personal Names (pn:) 046 f g f g
100, 400, 500, 700 a b c d e j q a b c d e j q
Relationship (rx:)



 		 100, 400, 500, 700 e j Not applicable
110, 410, 510, 710 e Not applicable
111, 411, 511, 711 j Not applicable
400, 410, 411, 430, 450, 451, 455, 480, 481, 482, 485 i 4 Not applicable
500, 510, 511, 530, 550, 551, 555, 580, 581, 582, 585 i 4 Not applicable
Subdivision Headings (sb:)


 		 180, 480, 580, 789 v x y z v x y z
181, 481, 581, 781 v x y z (781 z) v x y z (781 z)
182, 481, 582, 782 v x y z v x y z
185, 485, 585, 785 v x y z v x y z
Titles (ti:)

See Note 3 below.		 031 d t d t
100, 400, 500, 700 f g h k l m n o p r s t f g h k l m n o p r s t
110, 410, 510, 710 d f g h k l m n o p r s t d f g h k l m n o p r s t
111, 411, 511, 711 d f g h k l n p s t d f g h k l n p s t
130, 430, 530, 730 a d f g h k l m n o p r s t a d f g h k l m n o p r s t
Topicals (sp:) 150, 450, 550, 750 a b v x y z a b
Note 1: The LC Names index includes all Library of Congress authority records with the 010 prefix starting with n* (n, nb, no, nr, ns).

Note 2: The LCSH index contains all Library of Congress authority records with the 010 prefix sh and sj, as well as X51 headings from authority records with the 010 prefix starting with n* (n, nb, no, nr, ns).

Note 3: Subfields for the Titles index for tags X00, X10, X11 are the reverse of subfields indexed for personal, corporate, and conference name indexes.

In these notes, “X” represents any number.

Derived search indexes

The following derived search indexes are unavailable for browsing:

Index name (label) (pattern) Fields indexed Subfields indexed
Personal Name (pd:) (4,3,1) 100, 400, 500, 700 a
Corporate, Conference, or Geographic Name (cd:) (=4,3,1) 110, 410, 510, 710 a b
111, 411, 511, 711 a e
151, 451, 551, 751, 781 a v x y z
Title (td:) (3,2,2,1) 100, 400, 500, 700 f g h k l m n o p r s t
110, 410, 510, 710 d f g h k l m n o p r s t
111, 411, 511, 711 d f g h k l n p s t
130, 430, 530, 730 a d f g h k l m n o p r s t
Subject (sd:) (5,3) 150, 450, 550, 750 a v x y z
180, 480, 580, 780 v x y z
181, 481, 581, 781 v x y z (781 z)
182, 482, 582, 782 v x y z
185, 485, 585, 785 v x y z

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Within the Connexion client: