Yale University Library: Electronic Text Center



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Alphabetical Listing of Holdings Holdings by Subject Helpsheets Electronic Text Search

Major Authors on CD-ROM

The Brontës Miguel de Cervantes Johnson & Boswell Walt Whitman Virginia Woolf Searching

The Brontës: This database contains scholarly editions of the novels and poetry of the four Brontë siblings: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Patrick Branwell. It includes biographical information and critical commentary in searchable full-text format. Over 3,000 images of Brontë manuscripts, letters, drawings, and photographs appear.

Miguel de Cervantes: This database contains Cervantes' complete works (including Don Quixote) in the form of scholarly editions with commentary, reproductions of the first editions, and notable English translations. All are available in searchable full-text format, and images of the original first-edition manuscripts are also available. The program includes biographical information, a critical bibliography, and a collection of illustrations from several editions of Don Quixote. The ETC has English and Spanish-language versions of this CD-ROM.

Johnson & Boswell: Annotated works of Samuel Johnson and John Boswell, including the Oxford and Yale editions of Johnson's Works and Boswell's Life of Johnson. The collection includes poetry, memoirs, biographies, criticism, and travel writings by both authors. Biographical information and a critical bibliography also appear. All texts are fully searchable. The program contains numerous paintings, drawings, and engravings of Johnson and Boswell.

Walt Whitman: This CD-ROM contains several editions of Whitman's poetry, his collected fiction and essays, his journals from 1876-1891, and many unpublished poems and prose works. It includes the six versions of Leaves of Grass that were published in Whitman's lifetime. The NYU Variorum edition of Whitman's poetry offers line-by-line comparisons of all of the published versions of each poem. The database includes contemporary reviews of Whitman's work, over 150 photographs of the poet, and a recording of his voice. All texts are fully searchable.

Virginia Woolf: This database contains the complete works of Virginia Woolf (including variant and hard-to-find editions) with scholarly commentary. Extensive biographical information accompanies these texts. The CD-ROM includes over 12,000 manuscript images, as well as the reference source Virginia Woolf A to Z. A recording of Woolf's BBC Talk "Craftsmanship" also appears.

Searching Major Authors: Standard Search

To access the standard search feature, click on the Search button on the toolbar or select the Search option from the Tools menu. You can search all of the database's texts for one or more words by typing them in the dialogue box and clicking Search. To search for a phrase, be sure to put the terms in single quotation marks. The Cervantes program supports searches in English and Spanish.

The Major Authors programs recognize the boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. (Note: The Spanish-language Cervantes CD-ROM uses the English forms of these operators.) It assumes the AND relationship between terms that are not separated by one of these operators. A search of multiple terms separated by the operator AND will return documents containing all of the search terms. Searches in which terms are separated by OR will return documents containing one or more of the given terms. NOT can be used in two ways: when separating two terms, it will return documents containing the first and not the second. When NOT occurs before one or more search terms and is not itself preceded by a search term, the search will return all documents that do not contain the given term or terms.

Hint #1: The search engine automatically searches for instances of a term that vary in tense and plurality. For example, if you search for "walk," the program will also return instances of "walks," "walking," and "walked." (This "stemming" feature also works in the Spanish-language program.) If you do not wish to search for these variants, place single quotation marks around your search term or terms.

Hint #2: For more information on searching and search operators, click on the Tips button at the bottom of the Search screen.

Viewing Search Results

The list of relevant documents will appear in a window on the left side of the screen. Documents are listed in order of relevance, with the titles containing the greatest number of hits appearing first. To view a document, click on its title and a window displaying the relevant page will open. If more than one page in a document satisfies your search parameters, you can move between pages using the Relevant Page Number pull-down menu. Search terms are highlighted in the full-text display. If an image of the page is available, a hyperlink will appear at the top of the text. Hyperlinks embedded in the text refer to footnotes.

Hint #3: If your search includes multiple terms, clicking on some matches may produce a dialogue box that asks if you wish to search "across pages." This means that not all of your search terms appear on the same page within the document. If you request a search "across pages," the program will display all of the pages in the document that contain one or more of the search terms.

Hint #4: You can use the Bookmark feature to keep a record of specific pages that you've looked at, so that you may easily return to them. Bookmark files can be saved and recalled in subsequent sessions (see "Printing and Saving".) To bookmark the page in the active window, click on the Bookmark button on the toolbar or the Bookmark & Revisit List shortcut on the desktop. When the Bookmarks window appears, click the Bookmarks tab and then click the "Make" button. If the "make" button is inactive, try clicking on the window containing the document. To return to a bookmarked selection, highlight the bookmark (which appears in citation form) and click the "Restore" button. You can view the list of bookmarks at any time by returning to the Bookmarks window.

Hint #5: The Revisit List records searches performed and documents viewed during the current session. Click on the "Revisit" tab in the Bookmark window to bring up the list. You can return to a page of a document by highlighting the corresponding citation and clicking "Restore." If you highlight a search definition and click "Restore" the search results will reappear.

Other Navigational Features

The Table of Contents allows you to browse through the database's texts and illustrations. Clicking on either the Table of Contents menu or the TOC button on the toolbar will produce a list of texts and illustrations. This can be sorted by type, author, title, or date. Click on a title from this list to view the document or image.

The index provides a quick way to search the database for occurrences of proper names. Click on the Index button on the toolbar to view an alphabetically ordered list of names with hyperlinks to relevant sections of the texts.

Printing and Saving:

The Major Authors CD-ROMs allow you to print and save search results, selections from documents, bookmarks, index listings, and the table of contents. Items to be printed or saved must appear in the active window. Click on the Print/Save button on the toolbar to bring up the Print/Save dialog box. If the material in the active window cannot be printed or saved, this button will be inactive. When printing or saving part of a full-text document, you can select the active page or a range of pages. You can also choose to include bibliographic information and a record of your search terms. Click on the Print button to print your selection or the Save button to save it. If either command is inactive, the selection cannot be printed or saved.

Important: When saving a list of bookmarks, make sure to change the file type from "Text" to "Bookmark" in the Save As window. You can also save bookmark files with the "Save Bookmark File" command under the File menu. To access saved bookmark files in a subsequent session, select the "Open Bookmark File" command under the File menu. Note: The saving and recollection of bookmarks in the Cervantes program has been associated with a bug that causes the program to crash. At the current time, we recommend against saving bookmark files.

For More Information:

Consult the on-line help or the user manual.