OpenAlex technical documentation
  • Overview
  • Quickstart tutorial
  • API Entities
    • Entities overview
    • 📄Works
      • Work object
        • Authorship object
        • Location object
      • Get a single work
      • Get lists of works
      • Filter works
      • Search works
      • Group works
      • Get N-grams
    • 👩Authors
      • Author object
      • Get a single author
      • Get lists of authors
      • Filter authors
      • Search authors
      • Group authors
      • Limitations
      • Author disambiguation
    • 📚Sources
      • Source object
      • Get a single source
      • Get lists of sources
      • Filter sources
      • Search sources
      • Group sources
    • 🏫Institutions
      • Institution object
      • Get a single institution
      • Get lists of institutions
      • Filter institutions
      • Search institutions
      • Group institutions
    • 💡Topics
      • Topic object
      • Get a single topic
      • Get lists of topics
      • Filter topics
      • Search topics
      • Group topics
    • 🗝️Keywords
    • 🏢Publishers
      • Publisher object
      • Get a single publisher
      • Get lists of publishers
      • Filter publishers
      • Search publishers
      • Group publishers
    • 💰Funders
      • Funder object
      • Get a single funder
      • Get lists of funders
      • Filter funders
      • Search funders
      • Group funders
    • 🌎Geo
      • Continents
      • Regions
    • Concepts
      • Concept object
      • Get a single concept
      • Get lists of concepts
      • Filter concepts
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      • Group concepts
    • Aboutness endpoint (/text)
  • How to use the API
    • API Overview
    • Get single entities
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  1. API Entities
  2. Authors

Search authors

PreviousFilter authorsNextGroup authors

Last updated 1 year ago

The best way to search for authors is to use the search query parameter, which searches the and the fields. Example:

  • Get works with the author name "Carl Sagan":

Searching without a middle initial returns names with and without middle initials. So a search for "John Smith" will also return "John W. Smith".

Names with diacritics are flexible as well. So a search for David Tarrago can return David Tarragó, and a search for David Tarragó can return David Tarrago. When searching with a diacritic, diacritic versions of the names are prioritized in order to honor the original form of the author's name. Read more about our handling of diacritics .

You can read more in the in the API Guide. It will show you how relevance score is calculated, how words are stemmed to improve search results, and how to do complex boolean searches.

Search a specific field

You can also use search as a , by appending .search to the end of the property you are filtering for:

  • Get authors with the name "john smith" in the display_name:

When searching for authors, there is no difference when using the search parameter or the filter display_name.search, since display_name is the only field searched when finding authors.

Search filter
Field that is searched

You can also use the filter default.search, which works the same as using the .

Autocomplete authors

You can autocomplete authors to create a very fast type-ahead style search function:

  • Autocomplete authors with "ronald sw" in the display name:

This returns a list of authors with their last known affiliated institution as the hint:

{ 
  "results": [
      {
          "id": "https://openalex.org/A5007433649",
          "display_name": "Ronald Swanstrom",
          "hint": "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA",
          "cited_by_count": 19142,
          "works_count": 339,
          "entity_type": "author",
          "external_id": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7777-0773",
          "filter_key": "authorships.author.id"
       },
       ...
  ]
}

Read more about .

👩
autocomplete
https://api.openalex.org/authors?search=carl sagan
here
search page
filter
https://api.openalex.org/authors?filter=display\_name.search:john smith
https://api.openalex.org/autocomplete/authors?q=ronald sw
search parameter
display_name
display_name_alternatives
display_name
display_name.search