Library of Congress Authorities Help Pages: use the browser's back button to resurme searching

Searching Title Authority Headings

[Image of Search Type Selection Box with Title Authority Headings selected] Select the search type, "Title Authority Headings" on the main search screen to browse authority records for:

Uniform Titles, that are not entered under a personal or group author/creator
Series Titles, that are not entered under a personal or group author/creator

... established by the Library of Congress (and cooperating partners) and used in Library of Congress Online Catalog records.

Keyword Searching of authority records is not available in this release of Library of Congress Authorities. All searches should be entered beginning with the leftmost word of the heading (see search tips below)

Series titles and uniform titles are searchable as Title Authority Headings. Most title authority headings and references will also be retrieved by a Subject Authority Headings search; but to ensure retrieval of all relevant records, it is recommended that only the Title Authority Headings search type should be used to search for title headings.

Title Authority Heading Search Examples:

To browse the title . . .	Enter the words . . .
Gardening by Design	gardening by design
The Song of Roland	song of roland
A New-York Historical Society Book	new york historical society book
Mother Goose	mother goose

Search Tips:

Always omit initial articles (a, an, the, das, el, la, etc.) in any language.
Always omit initial punctuation in any language (e.g., quotation marks, ¿). Also, replace other punctuation with a space. (Exception: drop apostrophes and close up the space.) See examples, above.
If searching the full title does not produce satisfactory results, enter only the first few words of the title.
- crito (for Crito; a Socratic dialogue or Crito; or, A dialogue on beauty )
- dr jekyll (for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Dr. Jekyll alias Mr. Hyde)
- new directions in ed (for New directions in education)
- what do you care what (for What do YOU care what other people think?)
Consider alternate forms of title words:
- initials, acronyms, abbreviations (e.g., us or united states)
- numbers (e.g., 10 or ten)
- one word or two (e.g., healthcare or health care)
- spelling variations (e.g., color or colour)
- similar concepts (e.g., british or english)
- word variations (e.g., email or e-mail)
Searches are automatically truncated and retrieve catalog records that begin with the words or phrases entered. Do not use the question mark (?) for truncation.

How to View Authorities and References:

Your search results will be presented as a Headings List -- a list of all name headings in the Library of Congress Online Catalog, whether the headings have online authority records associated with them or not.

Please Note: Headings that end with the legend "[from old catalog]" were assigned before the online cataloging era and may not be associated with an online authority record. In addition, the Headings List may display headings from in-process catalog records for which authority records will be made in the near future.

The Title Authority Headings search is a "browse," placing you at the point in the index most closely matching your search words. Select to view headings that precede your search words alphabetically or scroll down to view headings following your search words.

[Image of a Headings List for Arabian Nights]

To retrieve authority information, references and/or scope notes for a heading, select the icon shown to the left of the heading.

Please consult the following Help Screens for more detailed information:

Use the browser's [Back] button to exit help and resume searching.

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Library of Congress Authorities - authorities.loc.gov
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June 27, 2002