internetarchive / internetarchive/openlibrary

Improve search for common author names

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#7,337 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Lead: @cdrini Module: Authors Module: Search Page(s) Priority: 4 Theme: Search Type: Feature Request
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Python
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Description

### Describe the problem that you'd like solved

Searches for common author names which return large volumes of results are impossible for users to navigate productively. For example, the search for [Jose Diaz](https://openlibrary.org/search/authors?q=Jose%CC%81+Diaz) returns 405 results and even an "exact" search for ["Jose Diaz"](https://openlibrary.org/search/authors?q=%22Jose%CC%81+Diaz%22) returns over a hundred results.

### Proposal & Constraints

Here are a few suggestions for things which could be done to improve this situation:
- Add an "exact match" check box so that users can find it easily (currently they need to know to use quotes)
- Make complete matches rank higher than partial matches (ie José Díaz should rank before José Díaz Fernández)
- Add an author "advanced" search that allows the user to specify birth and/or date ranges
- Allow the user specify the sort order for results so that they can choose something other than the default

### Additional context

### Stakeholders

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