Any standard format will work. E.g., to find books by F. A. Hayek, you can enter any of
Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
f. a. hayek (case is optional)
Hayek, Friedrich A. (order and commas are optional), or even just
F (periods are optional)
but not FA Hayek (a space is required between the initials).

Search for authors, editors, etc., finds authors, editors, translators, and some authors of forewords or standalone essays within larger works, as recorded in our Card Catalog.

To reduce the number of hits, you can alternatively select Search for authors only, Search for editors only, or Search for translators only.

Search for author and title. You can limit the search to works by a specified author with titles containing specified keywords by selecting Search for author and title. Examples: Searching for Bastiat with this selection finds all works by Bastiat. Searching for Bastiat harmonies finds only Bastiat's Economic Harmonies.

N.B. Some contributors to large, multi-author works may not be located by selecting Search for authors, editors, etc.. To find individual authors of articles in multi-contributor works such as the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (CEE), or very obscure references to authors, search for Keywords or Works By or About.

Trick for advanced users: You can list all works by authors whose last name begins with a particular letter, say H, by selecting Search for authors and entering a carat followed by that letter (e.g., ^H) in the Search field. [To alphabetize the list, select Sort by author.] The same trick works for editors and translators, but each of those categories must be done separately. Thus, to find works edited by people whose last name starts with H you must select Search for editors, not Search for authors, editors, etc. You can also do a series of letters (e.g., ^Mi for works by authors whose names begin with Mi).

N.B. Last names in our data base begin after attributives such as "de" or "von". E.g., In a search for last names, Antoine Destutt de Tracy will be found by searching for ^T for Tracy, not "^D" for Destutt or "^d" for de Tracy.

Searching for titles: Select Search for titles and type in the title or a portion of the title. Any standard format will work. Case and order do not matter. E.g., to find all books with the word "principles" in the title, type in principles.

Note: The subtitles as well as the titles of most books are searched.

To limit your search by author, see Search for author and title.

Searching for first publication dates: Select Search for first pub. dates and type in a four digit year that approximates the work you are looking for. The default is to report all books published in that year, plus or minus 25 years, but you will be offered the option to increase or decrease that range in the resulting search form. Choose ± 0 years to specify an exact year. Advanced users: You can change the range directly in your browser's address box.

Searching for keywords (the Default). Keyword searches give you the broadest possible full-text search of Econlib books by taking advantage of the Site Search engine to find all books with pages containing all keywords (also known as "search terms") you type in. If you select Search for keywords, you may also choose to sort your results By Rank. The Rank or Score given in the Comments column is the same as the maximum rank or score for any matching page in the book.

Keyword searches in the Card Catalog provide only links to the books and classic reprinted essays on Econlib. Additional resources may also be available on Econlib in the form of annotated bibliographies, current articles, Teacher's Corners, EconLog, or links to other websites. For the maximum possible coverage, including any additional items, use the Site Search engine.

Extraneous results may sometimes occur. To improve your results: Use quotation marks around your phrase to indicate you are searching for an exact phrase. Remove all short words: common words of 3 or fewer letters. (See also Boolean logic.) Sort your results By Rank to pull more relevant works to the top of the list. Extraneous results sometimes occur because the Site Search running in the background of a keyword search is very broad and captures all possible hits for your review. For more information, see the FAQ.

If you search for keywords or works-by-or-about, your search may take a few seconds longer than other Card Catalog searches because the Site Search engine runs in the background. If you are searching for a very common word (e.g., "economics"), please be patient. The search routine is very efficient, so if you find you are waiting over 30 seconds, it's probably your Internet connection, which may be slow to display the full results. All the same, please let us know if you are frequently delayed longer than you expect.

New books and classic essays are added to Econlib approximately once a month. These works are occasionally available in advance via searches for authors, editors, etc. or titles.

Searching for works by or about an individual. Select this option, and then just type in the individual's name or a portion of the name. Works-By-or-About searches take advantage of the Site Search engine to find all books with pages containing all keywords (also known as "search terms") you type in. If you search for Works-By-or-About someone, you may also choose to sort your results By Rank. See keywords for more information.

Note: If you are looking for an author who has contributed an essay to the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (CEE), searching for Works-By-or-About will find it even if searching for authors in various forms does not find it.

Searching for bibliographies or bibliographical references. Many Econlib books contain scholarly bibliographies with complete citation information for books and articles, typically in appendices or at the ends of books or scholarly essays. You can plumb these lists to find bibliographical material by keywords such as the book's author, title, or even publication date. It works by limiting the searches just to items in these bibliographies, where Econlib has tagged each such entry with the special abbreviation "Bib." in its paragraph number. To find bibliographical material takes two steps:

1. First, find the relevant bibliographies for your keywords. Select Search for bibliographies in the Card Catalog and perform the search. This creates a custom list of books and reprinted articles containing bibliographical references to your keywords. (The abbreviation "Bib." is automatically added to your search form. It is needed for the next step.)
2. Then, to show the citations themselves, just select the resulting button for Search All Listed Books (or Search Book). This will perform a Book Search which pulls all the paragraphs—that is, the bibliographical references—from your custom list of books.

Example: Suppose you want to find out the publication date and full title of a book by Joseph Schumpeter, but you can't remember the exact name of the book. Or suppose you are creating a list of books and articles about Schumpeter and want to find relevant book titles, journal articles and journal names, pages, etc.

Step 1. In the Card Catalog Search form, enter the name "Schumpeter" and select Search for bibliographies. Perform the search. The resulting custom list gives the names of books and scholarly essays containing bibliographical references to Schumpeter.
Step 2. Select the Search All Listed Books button at the top of the list. The resulting Book Search page combs the items in that custom list and reports the paragraphs—that is, the citations—containing the name Schumpeter. With any luck, the book you have in mind will be listed, allowing you to find all the citation details.

Example: Suppose you want to find books of economic interest written in the 1770s.

Step 1. In the Card Catalog Search form, enter the keyword "177*" and select Search for bibliographies. Perform the search. The resulting list gives the names of books and scholarly essays containing bibliographical references to the 1770s because the asterisk is the wildcard.
Step 2. Select the Search All Listed Books button at the top of the list. The resulting Book Search page combs the items in that custom list and reports the paragraphs with the keyword "177". (Note that the asterisk is automatically removed because it is not the right wildcard for the Book Search tool, but the report will still contain books published in the 1770s along with some extraneous entries. The list is nevertheless shorter than Searching for Keywords because Searching for Bibliographies limits the search to just bibliographcial material.)

Notes: Be careful to return to the Card Catalog to search for each different keyword! The custom list of books remains the same till you do so. There is no sense searching for references to Adam Smith in a custom list of books you created originally to search for references to Robert Lucas!

Additional references may be available elsewhere on the website, such as in annotated bibliographies written expressly for Econlib. To expand your search, use the Site Search.

If you Search for Bibliographies, you may also choose to sort your results By Rank. See keywords for more information.

And/Or, or Boolean logic. The default for multiple terms when doing a Card Catalog Search is and. That is, a match occurs only if all your search terms match the field you are searching.

Example: Type in the keywords monetary fiscal policy to find books on monetary and fiscal policy. Leave out the word "and"—it's the default.

If you are in doubt, leave it out. Type in only the most minimal, primary, unique keywords for what you are looking for. Example: a search for Comte Destutt de Tracy will not locate all of Tracy's work, but a search for Destutt de Tracy or just Destutt will. Because Tracy did not personally use the title Comte for his writings, we have not placed it in the card catalog data base for all his writings.

There is no completely reliable option in the Card Catalog for fully searching for term A or B, or for searching for term A but not B. (If your search requires it, use the Site Search as an alternative.) The Boolean syntax of using or or not between words does work in the Card Catalog in two cases: if you are searching for keywords or works by-or-about a particular author. But: If your ultimate goal is to search a specific book in that list, your initial Book Search is likely to fail. Hint if it fails: After clicking Book Search, inspect and modify the search terms that have been supplied automatically by the Card Catalog Search according to the syntax appropriate for the Book Search. You may have to do the Book Search twice, once for each of your "or" terms; or you may just have to ignore some extraneous paragraphs if you were attempting to use "not".) Please let us know, including a specific example, if you are seriously inconvenienced.

Exact phrases: Use quotation marks around your phrase to indicate you are searching for an exact phrase. Exact phrases increase accuracy if you are sure of the phrase, but may surprise you by skipping related material that contains your search terms out of order.

Example of an improvement: At the moment I'm writing this, the unquoted search terms public finance yield 61 matches. The quoted terms "public finance" yield only 13 matches. Explanation: The unquoted terms match with dozens of pages where the two words public and finance appear far apart.

Example of a surprise: At the moment I'm writing this, the unquoted search terms money supply yield 55 matches. The quoted terms "money supply" yield only 4 matches. The quoted terms "supply of money" yield 9 matches. Explanation: The unquoted terms match with dozens of pages where the two words money and supply appear far apart. However, the phrases "money supply" and "supply of money" are used interchangeably in the literature.

Wildcards: The familiar asterisk * is a multi-character wildcard in this search tool. It can be used within words or at the ends of words. At the ends of words, it is optional: words will be found if the search term is only a portion of them.

E.g., searching for econ and econ* produce identical results; but to find both the old-fashioned economical theory and the more modern economic theory in book titles, use economic*theory or the more concise econ*theory.

Some punctuation is ignored, but other punctuation (including sometimes periods, apostrophes, quotation marks, and hyphens) may cause occasional no-matches to be found even if your terms do have matches. If you get no matches in your Search Results, remove any punctuation and try again.

Special characters, ligatures, and accents. Most accented characters and ligatures can be found by searching for their most common English equivalent. That is, to find any of

àáâãäåÀÁÂÃÄÅèéêëÈÉÊËìíîïÌÍÎÏòóôõöÒÓÔÕÖùúûüÙÚÛÜçÇñÑ, search for
aaaaaaAAAAAAeeeeEEEEiiiiIIIIoooooOOOOOuuuuUUUUcCnN;
to find
æÆœŒ search for ae, AE, oe, OE (or sometimes just e).

You can also paste any of these ligatured or accented characters directly into the Search Form. Other special characters can also be copied and pasted into the search form as follows: £§ÐØŠÝŸÞðøšßýþÿ. See also the ASCII/HTML Conversion Table.

Search Book buttons. Once you do a Card Catalog search, your Search Results will offer you the option to show the paragraphs in each book that contain your search terms. Clicking any of these buttons takes you to the very detailed Book Search of the specified item, displaying all paragraphs with your search terms (keywords), with the terms highlighted.

If you click the Search Book button and get no hits, first inspect the box in the Book Search form containing your keywords and change it. The Book Search checks for paragraphs containing all your search terms. Now that you've located the book in the Card Catalog using, say, keywords from the book's title, etc., you may not want to search for paragraphs that also have to contain words from the book's title. The search programs are smart enough to prompt you for some common oversights, but nothing beats your personal attention! See also the Help page if your search terms are not found as expected.
There is a Book Search limit of 200 paragraphs. If your Book Search exceeds 200 paragraphs, you will have to refine your search. You can do that in either the Book Search form or the Card Catalog Search form. Sometimes a sequence of well-thought-out modifications gets the best results.

Creating a Custom Book Search list: The Search All Listed Books button. If between 2 and 70 books contain your search terms, your Card Catalog Results will offer you the option to Search All Listed Books. By clicking that button, you will create a Custom Book Search drop-down list of up to 30 books, taking you to a very detailed search of all the specified books and displaying any specific paragraphs with your search terms (keywords) with the terms highlighted.

If your list contains more than 30 items, the custom list will be truncated after the first 30 books from the table of listed books on your Card Catalog Results page. Thus, if you have more than 30 books listed, you may want to refine your Card Catalog search to reduce the number of hits or change the order of the books by sorting by a different characteristic before clicking the button. Results are also limited to the first 200 paragraphs found. Please see the Search Book section above, and Searching All Books for more information. See also the Help page if your search terms are not be found as expected.

Copyright ©: 2002-2004, Liberty Fund, Inc.
Programming and interactivity with the Book Search and Site Search engines by Lauren Landsburg.
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