Template:Internet Archive author/doc

Internet Archive author is a template to generate links to Internet Archive for works by or about a person. It is similar in purpose to Gutenberg author and Librivox author though not limited to authors. Musicians, film directors, etc.. any person or entity with a work on Archive.org

Usage
The template is used like this:

Optional parameters

 * sname: Change the search name only. The name used when searching IA.
 * Useful when the article title is a shortened version of the name.
 * Example for Benjamin W. Wells: —yields better results.
 * Example for Benjamin Farjeon: —yields better results.
 * Or when a refined search is needed:
 * Example for Constantine the Great: —This yields better results.
 * Example for Olympiodorus of Thebes: —Middle names of "the", "of" etc. are often—though not always—better removed with sname. Test to see which returns the best results.
 * dname: Change the display name only.
 * name: Change both the display & search name. Normally defaults to the page title. Useful in a number of scenarios:
 * The page title is the real name of the person, but on Internet Archive it uses their pseudonym.
 * Example for Berta Behrens aka "W. Heimburg":
 * To search on multiple names such as multiple pseudonyms, use multiple instances of the template. Or see custom search below.
 * birth: Change the birth year. Normally defaults to the year found in Wikidata. If no dates are showing in the search string, and there is an available birth date for the article, it means Wikidata is missing. You can either 1. Update Wikidata (recommended) or 2. Hard-code the dates in the template using the birth= and death= options. For updating Wikidata, the Wikidata page for Joseph Conrad shows an example entity that has complete data. For incomplete entities, the Property for birth is P569 and Property for death is P570 and can be added by clicking "Add" at the bottom of the "Statements" section.
 * death: Change the death year. See comments for birth.
 * Example for Albert Einstein:
 * media: Specify a media collection(s) to search. Default is all of them: texts audio video
 * Example for Edward Elgar: produces
 * coda: Special message at end.
 * Example for Claude Hagège: produces
 * search: Custom search string. See section below for examples. No other options work when using custom search (except for dname), options must be hand coded in the search string.
 * sopt: Search options:
 * sopt=t (or sopt=tight):
 * This will make a more specific "tight" search reducing false positives, but at the risk of creating false negatives. Always compare results with and without a tight search.
 * sopt=w:
 * Used when a name contains extended-ascii (ie. accented letters) such as "Stéphane Mallarmé". It will add a wildcard search eg. "St*phane Mallarm*". This is because the IA database has at least 3 different ways to render accented letters, the wildcard will pick up all cases. However it can also result in many false positives so should be used with care, always comparing results with or without "w" and pick the best one. Evidence shows "w" is best choice about 40% of the time (when names contain accented letters).
 * sopt=w:
 * Used when a name contains extended-ascii (ie. accented letters) such as "Stéphane Mallarmé". It will add a wildcard search eg. "St*phane Mallarm*". This is because the IA database has at least 3 different ways to render accented letters, the wildcard will pick up all cases. However it can also result in many false positives so should be used with care, always comparing results with or without "w" and pick the best one. Evidence shows "w" is best choice about 40% of the time (when names contain accented letters).

BC dates
Currently the script does not automatically determine if a date is AD or BC e.g. Category:63 BC births. This won't matter too much when searching Internet Archive. When setting dates via the options above, leave off AD/BC designator.

Custom search
It is possible to use a custom search. This is mainly useful when a person is known by multiple names, but also other scenarios (see examples).

A custom search is surrounded by parenthesis when passed to the template. If Internet Archive returns an error about the 'search engine not working and try again later', it typically means the search parameter isn't enclosed in 's or the search string is otherwise malformed or has a syntax error.

Example custom searches:
 * For Ælfric of Eynsham, this works:
 * ..but this is easier and better results:
 * ..but this is easier and better results:


 * For Basil Valentine:
 * For Aylmer and Louise Maude:
 * Searches for both "Aylmer Maude" and "Louise Maude"


 * For Saint Augustine:

Tips on searching
These are some advanced techniques for difficult and unusual situations.

1. Many people have multiple names (birth name, pseudonyms, abbreviated names). Create template entries for each name, including a mirror template for each one using sopt=t. Preview the article—for each template entry click through to Internet Archive and note the total number of results at the top of the page. Scroll through and look for correct results and see which gives the most. Then scroll through and look for false positives (they usually appear towards the end of the list. This works best in the non-Beta site since search terms are highlighted in the search results.) Often if the sopt=t and non sopt=t entry give very different total result numbers, then sopt=t is the best choice. Once the best template entry is determined, delete the rest from the article and save. It's important to do this preview method in the article itself and not a temp page so that dates work correctly.

2. If technique #1 doesn't work you may need to build a custom search. See the custom search section for examples, but here are some general rules of thumb. Keep in mind searches are literal strings, and if the search term has multiple words it should be surrounded in quotes.
 * For a 3-word name where each word has multiple possibilities:
 * ( (first OR first) AND (middle OR middle) AND (last OR last) )
 * Most of the time there is usually only 1 word that multiple possibilities so something like:
 * ( first AND (last OR last) )
 * Date ranges can be added to exclude books outside the range eg.
 * creator:(("Daniel Noble" OR "Noble Daniel")) AND date:[1820-01-01 TO 1900-01-01])
 * This is potentially dangerous if a book is published after the author's death, but works in difficult cases with large numbers of false positives.
 * If there are still problems, consider including book titles in the search:
 * ( first AND (last OR last) AND ("book 1" OR "book 2") )
 * This technique is prone to false negatives since there may be journals or anthologies not known about ahead of time.
 * If there are not too many false positives, simply filter them out using the negative creator switch (-creator). For example:
 * Frank Henry Mason: ( Frank AND (Henry OR H.) AND Mason AND (1875 OR 1876) AND -creator:(Plautus OR Holcomb OR Zephyrin OR gordjenkins) )
 * In this example, the "-creator:" tells search to eliminate any creators with those names from the search. Note also the inclusion of two birth dates, sometimes Internet Archive records have incorrect birth data and this will match them.
 * Another method is the NOT (negative) search term:
 * Charles Sturt: ( ("Charles Sturt" OR "Surt, Charles") AND NOT (university OR brabazon) )
 * In this example, the "NOT" says don't include results with those terms anywhere in the record.

Information

 * For technical notes see the Lua source code.


 * Prior to November 4, 2015, Internet Archive's search engine was Lucene. It is now Elasticsearch (the same engine used at Wikipedia). It is possible to emulate the old Lucene engine by adding  to the end of a search URL.