SCIENCE FICTION AND
FANTASY
RESEARCH DATABASE
How to Search
Search Notes and Instructions
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database provides two search options for the user. Quick Search allows simple searches in a single category: Author, Title, Imprint, OR Subject. Advanced Search allows searching of two or more categories or fields, using Boolean operators as connectors.
SEARCH INSTRUCTIONS:
GENERAL CURRENT AWARENESS AUTHOR TITLE IMPRINT SUBJECT ADVANCED
GENERAL SEARCH
The default search option in Quick Search is "Search All Fields." This option may give a broad range of material. For greater specificity, try the "Advanced Search" option.
You may enter a single word or a search string, as,
Asimov
Asimov, Isaac
The default operator for multiple fields is "OR", so a search for "Asimov" would find Asimov in the Author OR Title OR Imprint OR Subject field. Remember, this is a "string search" database. You can search for "Asimov, Isaac", as a string of characters. The string will be searched exactly as you enter it. An extra space between words will generate a report which locates no records, for example. Do not use the apostrophe or diacritical characters in search strings, such as "O'Dell", "don't", or "über". When alternative search strategies can be used, avoid searching words with internal punctuation or with diacritical characters.
You may also select, using the pull-down menu, the options to search only the Author field, the Title field, the Imprint field, or the Subject field.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database can be used as a current awareness tool. The key to using the database in this way is to use the "Advanced Search" option. Choose "Imprint" for the first field, and enter the year, as, 2000. If you wish to limit the search to a particular author or subject, choose the appropriate field in the second search box, and enter the search string.
Typically, new material is entered on a quarterly basis, and the complete output for a given calendar year is not available until mid to late summer.
AUTHOR SEARCHING
Authors are entered in the format last name, first name, initial. When searching authors, search using LAST NAME, FIRST LETTER OF FIRST NAME. Early entries, from the beginning through 1985, are entered with last name and initials only. Beginning in 1985, the form last name, first name, middle initial was used, to give more detail and allow better searching. The use of the slash (as in Asimov, Isaac/Jacobs, Henry) is an artifact of history and the conversion process. Over time, editing will reformat author names to a more normal style.
TITLE SEARCHING
A title search locates simple search strings of words in the title field. You may enter as few as one significant word, or the entire title. When searching for non-English words, use the diacritical characters if known, but also search using the non-marked character. When alternative search strategies can be used, avoid searching words with internal punctuation or with diacritical characters.
IMPRINT SEARCHING
An imprint search locates publisher names or place names in the imprint field. You may enter as few as one significant word, or multiple words, such as Doubleday Dell. Use an Imprint Field to search for places, publisher names or dates.
SUBJECT SEARCHING
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Index was designed as a print index, and modified slightly to make use of Bill Contento’s manuscript production program. Choice of subject terms was made from a standard set of terms, or thesaurus. Subject entries were selected from the thesaurus; additional terms were used as subjects where users might recall the word or words from a title and try to access the items using those terms. The terms were repeated in the subject field, which generated the indexing headers in the printed versions of the indexes. As a result, the on-line version often repeats terms in the title and subject fields. The advantage is the ability to search the subject listing and find related material grouped together. Depending on your search strategy, it may mean items appear twice in the search results. The size of this database precludes a massive edit to regularize such anomalies, so for the foreseeable future, this artifact of the print world will remain in the online database.
Subject analysis is an art form; no two individuals would create identical sets, and no two indexers would apply terms of a standard thesaurus identically to a body of works. In some cases, subject terms could be improved or changed. As this online version is refined, changes, addition of terms, and editing will be done. Suggestions are welcome. Please send comments and suggestions to: Hal-Hall@tamu.edu.
ADVANCED SEARCHING
This on-line index is designed to allow searching on author, title words, publisher or source information, and subject headings. The design allows the use of Boolean logic, and concurrent searching of fields. For example, the search illustrated will locate any item by Westfahl AND published in Foundation magazine. Note the choice of "Author" in the top box (Westfahl), the Boolean operator AND selected between the first two search data boxes, and the choice of "Imprint" for the type in the second search data box (Foundation). For wider coverage of an author or a search term, try using the "Quick Search" option which searches all fields of the database.
A recommended search strategy is to use both the subject and title fields to obtain the most complete coverage of a topic. For example, SUBJECT = ASIMOV, ISAAC, with the Boolean operator "OR" TITLE = ASIMOV, again with the Boolean operator "OR" AUTHOR = ASIMOV, ISAAC should yield virtually all items by or about Isaac Asimov.
EXAMPLES OF SEARCH POSSIBILITIES
A report of all the articles indexes in a particular journal may be retrieved by entering the journal title in an "Imprint" search field, as "Extrapolation".
A report of all the publications of an author may be retrieved by entering the author's last name and first initial an "Author" search field, as, "Asimov, I".
A report of all obituaries may be retrieved by entering "Obituaries" in a "Subject" search field. Obituaries in a specific year may be retrieved by entering "Obituaries" in a "Subject" search field, selecting the Boolean operator "AND" and entering a year, such as "1999" in an "Imprint" search field.
A search for a specific book may be done by entering the author's last name in the "Author" search field, choosing the Boolean operator "And", and entering one or more sequential words from the title, as: "Asimov" AND "Caves of Steel".
Searches for multiple related terms may be done by entering segments of the word as your search string. For example, to retrieve "Feminist," "Feminism," and "Feminine", enter "Femin" in the search box. The search engine places a wild card before and after the string, and returns any occurence of the string, including such items as "anti-feminist".
PRINTING
Print results of your searches using the print function of your browser. No export function is available at this time.