The string method, split generates a list of substrings from a given string, split on a specified separator:
>>> s = 'Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun'
>>> s.split() # By default, splits on whitespace
['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun']
>>> s = "J. M. Brown AND B. Mencken AND R. P. van't Rooden"
>>> s.split(' AND ')
['J. M. Brown', 'B. Mencken', "R. P. van't Rooden"]