I manage a textbase containing the publications of my organization. One of our authors recently changed her last name (say from "Smith" to "Jones"), so all new records will be entered using her new name . My issue: when users do an author search of our textbase on the web and type in "Smith", I want them to also be able to retrieve the "Jones" records (and vice-versa), so they get all publications by that person.
I have "See-also" links on author names in my display forms, so I would need those links to retrieve records under the other name also.

What might be the best way to accomplish this?

That's a pickle. Any automated solution is going to need to rely on some association between Smith and Jones in your data. Why not add the name Jones to all previous records created under Smith?

Thanks for the reply Peter.
The problem with adding Jones as an author (if that's what you meant?) to all previous Smith records is that instead of getting this in the results display:

Smith, T.L.; Cooper, J.C. "Title of an article" Journal of something, 25, (12), pp. 54, October 01, 1995

...you would get this

Smith, T.L.; Cooper, J.C.; Jones,T.L. "Title of an article" Journal of something, 25, (12), pp. 54, October 01, 1995

..which is incorrect (Jones is not a third author on this paper). Unless I can suppress the appearance of Jones somehow?

As well, I have see-also links on the author names, so I would need to add Smith to all new Jones records in order for the Jones see-also link to retreive the Smith papers.

Any additional advice welcome!
Thanks,
Mike

Mike,

We have set up See and See Also links in a couple of databases, using a couple of different methods:

Method 1:
Search for “care” in the Any word or phrase box to see how these See also fields display in: [URL=http://jgh.andornot.com ]http://jgh.andornot.com [/URL]

The See and See Also fields are linked back to the correct Subject term via canned searches. You could do the same with your Authors, I would presume.

In this case there are fields in addition to the Subject field in the data structure: Cross Ref (the “incorrect” term); See and See Also (these later fields contain the correct terms that match a correct term in the Subject field). For example in the Search for “care” the first entry in the results is broken up like this:

CrossRef = Access to Health Care

See = Health Services Accessibility

Other than the record ID field, that is all that in that record.

In the search results display form, the canned search is built around the See entry so that when it is clicked, the search finds the correct Subject field.

The CrossRef, See, and SeeAlso fields are all searched in the Any word or phrase box on the search screen, along with the Subject, Title, etc. fields.

Method 2:
Search for “water” in the Any word box to see how these See Also fields display in: [URL=http://elc.andornot.com ]http://elc.andornot.com [/URL]

We use a JavaScript that essentially does the same as the above, using the same fields.

Contact Andornot for more details.

Denise

Many thanks Denise - I think Method 1 might be the solution.
Much appreciated!

Mike