Search Tips

General Search:

The bibliography is full text searchable using the search box on the Search Bibliography page, searching across all fields in the citations. The search box accepts single words or phrases, but does not currently allow the use of wild cards. It also accepts a blank search field if filters are applied. By default, all of the items in the bibliography are displayed if no search is applied.

Setting Filters:

Refine your search by using the dropdown menus for Author, Year, and Keyword. Multiple filters can be set for each search (e.g., Author filter with Year filter). To filter with two values for the same filter (e.g., search only for items where Smith and Jones are authors), first search by one author then refine the results using the author filter on the results page.

Author Filter:

This alphabetical list includes all authors, co-authors, editors, and pseudonyms. Works are listed under the author (when known). Author names with unusual accents, brackets, etc. may be listed at the end of the list.

Year Filter:

This list includes every year listed in the bibliography in reverse order from the present back to 1516. The results for a given year appear in alphabetical order by title. A limitation of the search is that the system cannot currently handle approximate dates (e.g. circa, ?, hyphens, square brackets). Therefore, there are two dates in all entries, the search year and the date as it appears in the citation. When only a date range is known for an item, the earliest date in the range is used for the search year. For example, an item with a date of [187-] will have a search date of 1870 or an item with a date range [1872-9] will have a search date of 1872.

Keywords Filter:

This list includes keywords for genre.

Sorting:

Once search results are displayed, they can be sorted alphabetically by Author, Title, or search Year.

Browsing the Database:

Another way of searching the database is to browse by Author or Keyword by selecting “Authors” or “Keywords” under “Search Bibliography” in the navigation menu. Click on an item in these alphabetical lists to retrieve all of the items related to an author or keyword. Here again, keep in mind that in the alphabetical list any names in brackets will appear at the bottom of the list (e.g. “[Abbott], [Edwin Abbott]” appears in the list after “Zutter, Daniel John”.

NOTE: There are many entries without an author or where keywords are not used, these Author and Keyword dropdowns will take you to only parts of the bibliography.

Viewing and Exporting Items:

To view an item, click on its title to go to the item page. Clicking on an author’s name will list all of the items authored by that individual in the database.

Use the links next to the citation (i.e., BibTex, RTF, XML or RIS) found next to the search results and at the bottom of the item’s page. To export all of the items from a search, use the links found at the right of the sort tabs on the search results page. Further, the database is compatible with citation management tools like Zotero or Mendeley if they are installed on your browser.

Each Metamorphic Book may include the following fields in addition to Title and Year for Search (the normalized 4-digit year used for the search and sort):