I need to build a list of faculty publications. The ideal solution
is to build one list. When I do a search by author, a list of author will come up alphabetically.
When I search by title, a list of title will come up alphabetically.
It should do the same with subject. To use Links SQL to do this,
it seems that I have to create three seperate lists. I need to attach
the same citation as description to each link. Do you have any suggestion?

Hi,

No, you do not require three lists. If I understand you correctly, you would simply add custom fields (done through the browser in Database->Links->Properties) for Author and Subject.

You can then search on all fields, or search on just Author, or just Subject, or just Title.

Hope this helps,

Alex

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Gossamer Threads Inc.

 
Alex:

My impression is Links SQL only searches key words or phrases in
whatever you enter in the title field. If I do add one or two fields
such as author or subject, Links does not search them by default.
Even if it does, can you bring up a list by author, or title, or subject alphabetically for browsing?
So far it is only one list for browsing. Thanks.

Hi,

No, the search is more powerful then that. You can do:

search.cgi?ColumnName=x

to search on any column. You can also mix and match, for instance, you can do:

search.cgi?query=x&ColumnName=y

to find all links where x is in any indexed field, and ColumnName is equal to y.

So in your case, you could do:

search.cgi?Author=alex

to find all authors by alex. Or

search.cgi?Title=gossamer

to find all books with a title gossamer. Or

search.cgi?Title=gossamer&Author=alex

to find both. You can also mix in query=x to use the general search index. It's all a matter of setting your search weights and your search form.

As for browsing, what I would recommend is organize it by subject area, then when viewing the book, you can have a link that would find all books by the same author (just using the search).

Hope that helps,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.