/about/helpSearch
Type: /type/page
body: value: <p>This is help for searching the Open Library through the user interface. If you are interested in automated searching, see the page that explains the Open Library  <a href="/dev/docs/api">Developer API</a>.</p>

<p style="padding-left: 20px;">
  <img src="/static/images/arrow.red.png" alt="arrow" /><a href="#book">Book search</a><br />
  <img src="/static/images/arrow.red.png" alt="arrow" /><a href="#advanced">Advanced search</a><br />
  <img src="/static/images/arrow.red.png" alt="arrow" /><a href="#facets">Using facets</a><br />
  <img src="/static/images/arrow.red.png" alt="arrow" /><a href="#contents">Contents of the Open Library</a><br />

 </p>
<h2><a name = "book"></a>Book search</h2>

<h3>How do I search for books in the Open Library?</h3>
<p>All of the data about books in the Open Library is indexed by keyword. You can type in any keywords in any order, whether for an author's name, a title, a subject, a description of the books, words in the table of contents, or any combination of those.</p>
<h3>I typed in keywords, but I got way too many hits. How can I narrow down my search?</h3>
<p>You can narrow your search beforehand using <a href="#advanced">advanced search</a>, or you can narrow it afterward using <a href="#facets">facets</a>.</p>
<h3>Can I search by ISBN?</h3>
<p>Yes. You can type an ISBN in the search box. Type it without hyphens, like "0954987918." This will usually retrieve the book you are looking for, although it is treating the ISBN like any other keyword. There is also a field for ISBN on the [advanced search] page which only searches on ISBNs. </p>
<h3>Can I search on LCCN (Library of Congress Catalog Number)? OCLC number? Some other identifier?</h3>
<p>If the data is in the record, you can search on it. However, many items in the Open Library have not come from a system that provides those identifiers so you might fail to retrieve the book in Open Library using that technique. </p>
<h3>I want to search for books by a particular author.</h3>

<p>There are two ways to limit your search to author names. The first is to use the [advanced search]and type keywords from the author's name (in any order) in the box after "Author." Another way is to select authors from the [facets] that appear on the retrieval page. Use of the [advanced search] will return more accurate results and will retrieve more authors than the facet technique.</p>
<h3>I'm only interested in books that I can download or read online.</h3>
<p>You can limit your search only to books with full text by clicking on the box by "Scanned books only" on the search page. If you have already done a search, the facet "Full text" will have a link "Available" with the number of scanned books that have been retrieved in that search. Clicking on this link will narrow your results to full-text books. <em>Note: we have 'full text' on the retrieval page and 'scanned books' on the search page. We should pick one and use it.</em> </p>
<h3>Can I search on the full text of a book?</h3>
<p>Yes. There are over one million full text books in the Open Library, and more being added each day. To search on the full text of these books, use the full text search box on the <a href="#advanced">advanced search</a> page. In addition. when you select the &quot;Read online&quot; option for a full text book the book reader that appears has a search option for searching within that book.
<h2><a name = "advanced"></a>Advanced search</h2>
<h3>I'm getting too many hits. How can I do a more precise search?</h3>
<p>Advanced search gives you the possibility to search on individual fields in the bibliographic records to increase the precision of your searches. Advanced search lets you search the following fields:</p>
<blockquote><ul><li>Title</li><li>Author</li><li>Subject</li><li>ISBN</li><li>Publisher</li><li>Description</li><li>Date range</li><li>Scanned books only</li></ul></blockquote>

<p>You can enter keywords into any one or more of the search boxes for a given search. For scanned books only, click on the box by that phrase.</p>
<h3>Do I have to type in the title exactly as it is? Does the author have to be family name before given name?</h3>
<p>No, the advanced search is a keyword search on specific fields so you can enter the words and names in any order, and as complete as you wish. Entering more keywords will probably mean getting fewer and more precise retrievals, but if you don't see what you expected you might try the search again with fewer terms. This can be helpful in situations where the data in the database does not contain full information, such as when it is missing subtitles, or does not contain spelled out forms of the forenames of authors.</p>
<h3>I know the book I'm looking for was published around 1950. Can I just look for books from that year or decade?</h3>
<p>The advanced search allows you to narrow your search to one of a set of date ranges. For books published &quot;around 1950,&quot; you would choose the date range &quot;1940-1959.&quot; You can also limit your retrievals by date after you have done a search by using the <a href="#facets">facets</a>  presented on the page with the retrieved set.</p>
<h2><a name="facets"></a>Facets</h2>

<h3>I've done a search and retrieved over a thousand books! Now what should I do?</h3>
<p>In a large database like the Open Library it is fairly common that a search will bring up more retrieved items than one can reasonable look through. On the right hand side of the results page there is a box that pulls out some key characteristics of the retrieved set and provides links for narrowing the set by these &quot;facets.&quot; In most cases the facets are limited to the top 5 values in the set for that facet. The facets available are:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Available: limit to items with full text available. This facet also lets you select books that are available for [scan on demand] scanning.</li>
<li>Subjects: select by subject heading</li>
<li>Publication date: select by date range</li>
<li>Publishers: select by the name of the publisher</li>

</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Each value in the facet area shows how many books will remain in the retrieved set when that facet is chosen.</p>
<h3>I chose a facet, but it narrowed my set too much. Can I undo the facet?</h3>
<p>Yes. Immediately below the Open Library banner you will see a &quot;breadcrumb&quot; trail for the facet you have chosen. It will look like:</p>
<blockquote>Selected facets: subjects: Indiana -- Fiction. (x) &gt;  (none)
</blockquote>
<p>By clicking on the &quot;x&quot; in parentheses following the facet name, you will remove that facet from your retrieval and return to your previous results.</p>

<h3>Can I choose more than one facet?</h3>
<p>You can choose only one facet on each retrieval page, but as you narrow your results you can continue to select facets that are presented. So on the first page you may narrow by author. Once the results have been limited to that author, the page will offer facets from this newly narrowed set, such as date ranges. You can continue to narrow by facets until you arrive at or select a single book.</p>
<p>Each of the facets chosen will show in the breadcrumb trail, and you can remove any of the facets you see there by clicking on the &quot;x&quot;, even those that are not in the right-most position.</p>
<img src="http://kcoyle.net/img/OLfacetcrumb2.jpg">
title: Searching the Open Library