Optional select or enter data

While I've been coding for a long time, I'm new to web development. I
have what seems like it should be a common situation but I'm not sure
how to solve it.

I have a MySQL database for my book collection. I'm trying to create a
web based front end with Perl. I have a Title and an Author table, with
a column in the Title table for AuthorID, which specifies a row in the
Author table. I'm creating a page to add new books to the database.
I'd like to be able to either select from the existing Authors, or to
enter a new author.

Ideally, I'd like a text field that that auto-fills in as you type,
selecting the closest match from the existing authors so long as a match
is found. (Hopefully, that's clear. The behavior is common but
somewhat difficult to describe.) HTML doesn't appear to support
anything near that level of sophistication. It should be possible to
write a script to create the behavior, but reloading the page after each
key press seems like a non-starter in terms of performance.

The only alternative I can come up with my limited knowledge is to have
both a text field for new entires and a select field for existing
entries. Surely there's a better way than that.

Assistance or pointers to info greatly appreciated.




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