CaltechAUTHORS Search Guide

⭢ See full metadata searching options for more information on using metadata strings to search specific fields within records.

⭢ See the most recently published items added to CaltechAUTHORS

⭢ See the most recently added items added to CaltechAUTHORS

Introduction

The home page of CaltechAUTHORS currently shows you the most recently added records in the database by default. Please be aware that these may not be the most recently published items.

• The default will be soon be changing to "most recently published". In the meantime, use this link in your browser's search box to see the most recently published items that have been added to CaltechAUTHORS
• Sort your search results by using the "Sort By" box's pull-down menu, located on the top-right of the search results list.

Ranking/Sorting

By default all searches are sorted according to an internal ranking algorithm that scores each match against your query. In both the user interface and REST API, it's possible to sort the results by:

• Most recent
• Best match

Simple searches (one or multiple terms)

Searching with one or more terms. NOTE that your results will show record where all your terms appear anywhere in the record:

Example: open science

Results will match records with the terms open or science in any field. Note that stemming is applied so e.g. science will also match sciences. Search results are ranked according to an algorithm that takes your query terms into account.

Example: Robert Grubbs

Results will match records with the terms Robert or Grubbs in any field. Search results are ranked according to an algorithm that takes your query terms into account.

You can indicate that one or both terms are required by adding either the + or AND operator:

Examples: +open +science or open AND science

You can indicate that one or more terms should be excluded by adding either the - or NOT operator:

Examples: -open +science or NOT open AND science

Phrase searches

Enclose your search phrase in quotation marks. IMPORTANT: Your results will show only records that have your phrase in your specific given order:

Example: "open science"

Results will match records with the phrase open science in any field.

Example: "robert grubbs"

Results will match records with the phrase robert grubbs in any field.

Field searches

⭢See full metadata searching options for more information on using metadata strings to search specific fields within records.

Title field searches:

You can search for just one term. Results will match records with the term open in the title field metadata.title.

Example: metadata.title:open

If you want to search for multiple terms in the title you must group the terms using parentheses:

Example: metadata.title:(open science)

You can combine multiple searches to further refine your results.

Example:+metadata.title:"open science" -metadata.title:policy OR metadata.title:(-open +science)

Author field searches:

You can search for specific persons in different ways. Results will vary by how exact your search is. The most popular are: 

Examples:

• Last name: metadata.creators.person_or_org.family_name:"feynman"
• Last Name, First Name: metadata.creators.person_or_org.name:"hopkins, philip"
• ORCID: metadata.creators.person_or_org.identifiers.identifier:"0000-0003-2908-5469"
• Local identifier: metadata.creators.person_or_org.identifiers.identifier:"Kiewiet-D-R"

Date range searches

Important tips:

• For best results, input the complete year range, for example 2017-01-01 TO 2017-12-31.
• You must add and capitalize "TO" as part of the range.
• Be sure to close the brackets!
• Use square brackets ([ ]) for inclusive ranges and use curly brackets ({ }) for exclusive ranges: 
  • [2017 TO 2018} is equivalent to [2017-01-01 TO 2017-12-31] because of date expansion and exclusive upper bound.

Results should match any record with a publication date between 2017-01-01 and 2018-01-01, excluding 2018-01-01.

Examples of date ranges:

• metadata.publication_date:[2017-01-01 TO 2017-12-31]
• metadata.publication_date:[2017-01-01 TO 2018}

You can also widen your search ranges by using curly brackets "{ }" and/or wildcards "*":

Examples of widening date ranges:

• metadata.publication_date:{* TO 2017-01-01}: All days until 2017.
• metadata.publication_date:[2017-01-01 TO *]: All days from 2017.

Advanced Searches

Missing values

It is possible to search for records that either are missing a value or have a value in a specific field using the _exists_ and _missing_ field names.

Example: _missing_:metadata.additional_titles (all records without metadata.additional_titles)

Example: _exists_:metadata.creators (all records with metadata.creators)

Boosting

You can use the boost operator ^ when one term is more relevant than another. For instance, you can search for all records with the phrase open science in either title or description field, but rank records with the phrase in the title field higher:

Example: metadata.title:"open science"^5 metadata.description:"open science"

Fuzziness

You can search for terms similar to but not exactly like your search term using the fuzzy operator ~.

Example: oepn~

Results will match records with terms similar to oepn which would e.g. also match open.

Proximity searches

A phrase search like "open science" by default expect all terms in exactly the same order, and thus for instance would not match a record containing the phrase "open access and science". A proximity search allows that the terms are not in the exact order and may include other terms in between. The degree of flexiblity is specified by an integer afterwards:

Example: "open science"~5

Wildcards

You can use wildcards in search terms to replace a single character (using ? operator) or zero or more characters (using * operator).

Example: ope? scien*

Wildcard searches can be slow and should normally be avoided if possible.