Template:Internet Archive author

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This template is used on approximately 19,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template uses Lua:

Module:Internet Archive (sandbox)

Internet Archive author is a template to generate links to the 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:

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Full name}}

Use the "Full name" without honorifics. For example:

For E. E. Smith: |sname=Edward Elmer Smith (expand abbreviations)
For Abraham Brill: |sname=Abraham Arden Brill (include middle name)
For Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet: |sname=Charles Dilke (remove honorifics)

The template can work without sname because it will default to the article title, however this is not recommended because article titles might change in the future for dab reasons. Thus, lock in the search name by hard coding sname.

If it's returning many false positives (works by other authors), try the sopt=t option to tighten the search. For example:

{{Internet Archive author|sname=Gyula Krúdy|birth=1878|death=1933}}

Results in many false positives.

{{Internet Archive author|sname=Gyula Krúdy|birth=1878|death=1933|sopt=t}}

Result has no false negatives and no false positives (good).

Tightened search has the danger of creating false negatives. Thus always compare, as above, before using sopt=t .. the goal is to have zero false negatives while creating as few false positives as possible. See section below Tips on searching.

If no birth-death dates are generated in the URL (i.e. missing dates on Wikidata), they can be hard coded in the template using the birth-death options (see below).
If the name has multiple spellings use the custom search option. Example for Jakob Böhme:

{{Internet Archive author|search=( (Jacob OR Jakob) AND (Böhme OR Bohme OR Behmen OR Boehme) )}}

More examples in the Custom search and Tips on searching sections below.

If the person has multiple names, such as multiple pseudonyms, use multiple instances of the template. If the names have commonalities (such as the same last name), try custom search.

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: {{Internet Archive author|sname=Benjamin Willis Wells}}—yields better results.
Example for Benjamin Farjeon: {{Internet Archive author|sname=Benjamin Leopold Farjeon}}—yields better results.

Or when a refined search is needed:

Example for Constantine the Great: {{Internet Archive author|sname=Constantine I}}—This yields better results.
Example for Olympiodorus of Thebes: {{Internet Archive author|sname=Olympiodorus}}—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": {{Internet Archive author|name=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: {{Internet Archive author|name=Albert Einstein|birth=1879|death=1955}}

media: Specify a media collection(s) to search. Default is all of them: texts audio video

Example for Edward Elgar: {{Internet Archive author|media=texts audio}} produces

Works by or about Edward Elgar at the Internet Archive

coda: Special message at end.

Example for Claude Hagège: {{Internet Archive author|media=texts|coda=(scanned books)}} produces

Works by or about Claude Hagège at the Internet Archive (scanned books)

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).

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 the 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 the 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:

{{Internet Archive author|search=("Abbot of Eynsham" OR "Ælfric of Eynsham" OR "Aelfric of Eynsham")}}

..but this is easier and better results:

{{Internet Archive author|search=( Eynsham AND (Abbot OR Ælfric OR Aelfric ) )}}

For Basil Valentine: {{Internet Archive author|search=("Basil Valentine" OR "Basilius Valentinus")}}
For Aylmer and Louise Maude: {{Internet Archive author|search=(Maude AND (Aylmer OR Louise))}}

Searches for both "Aylmer Maude" and "Louise Maude"

For Saint Augustine: {{Internet Archive author|search=("Bishop of Hippo" OR "Saint Augustine" OR "Augustine, Saint" OR "Aurelius Augustine" OR "Aurelius, Augustine" OR "Saint Austin" OR "Austin, Saint")}}

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 the 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 three-word name where each word has multiple possibilities:

|search=( (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:

|search=( first AND (last OR last) )

Date ranges can be added to exclude books outside the range eg.

|search=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:

|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: |search=( 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: |search=( ("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, the 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 &solr=1 to the end of a search URL.