Item Order in the Catalog

When using the keyword search indexes, the catalog returns results in a "bib summary" format. This means that it shows brief bibliographic information such as the title, author, publisher, publication date, and up to two items per resource. However, many of our resources have more than two items. In order to see the full list of items, and additional information about the resource, you must click on the title to display the "Full Bib."

How does the catalog determine which two items to display on the bib summary screen? Naturally, the answer is complicated. Our catalog uses two criteria to determine which items will display first.

• The library location your catalog is using
• The availability of an item

Each instance of our catalog is assigned a default library location. The general catalog that is accessed either from our website or by going directly to http://catalog.mylibrary.us/, is assigned to the Farr Regional Libray. This means that items will display using Farr libary's default order which is Farr Regional Library followed by Centennial Park, Lincoln Park and then the other libraries in the district. However, the catalog-only computers (PACs) within a specific library have that library's items listed first. For instance, Carbon Valley Regional Library's PACs would show Carbon Valley's items first followed by Erie Community Library. Note: this is true only for the PACs in the library. If you are in the library but access the catalog from our website, your default location will be Farr.

If all the items listed on a resource are available for checkout, they will appear in the order listed above. However, if some of the items are checked out, the checked in items recieve priority in the display. For example, if I'm using a Carbon Valley PAC but the Carbon Valley item is checked out, I might see the Erie item first in the list followed by the Farr item. Thus, if you are using a PAC within a library, you can quickly see on the search results whether an item is currently available at that location.

Catalog Trick: I mentioned above that only the PACs within the library are assigned to that library's location. However, there is a way to trick the catalog into believing you are using one of those PACs. When performing a search in our catalog, the web address appears at the top of the browser. It usually is a jumble of letters and numbers that look something like this: http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&aspect=subtab240&npp=10&ipp=20&spp=20&profile=weld&ri=2&source=~!horizon&index=.TS&term=birthday+cakes&x=0&y=0&aspect=subtab240. Within all this mess, there is a phrase that says "profile=weld". The profile is what tells the catalog which location it is searching from. In this case, "weld" stands for the profile that is accessed from the internet. By changing the profile code, you can change which location the catalog is associated with. For example, if I change the url to http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&aspect=subtab240&npp=10&ipp=20&spp=20&profile=cvr&ri=2&source=~!horizon&index=.TS&term=birthday+cakes&x=0&y=0&aspect=subtab240, the catalog will show Carbon Valley's items first. Here's a quick list of the catalog web addresses for each location:

• Carbon Valley Regional Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=cvr
• Centennial Park Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=cp
• Erie Community Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=erib
• Farr Regional Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=weld (this is the default you get when accessing the catalog from home)
• Lincoln Park Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=lp
• Eaton Public Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=eat
• Fort Lupton Public & School Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ftl
• Glenn A. Jones, M.D. Memorial Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=joh
• Hudson Public Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=hud
• Northern Plains Public Library - http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=aul

Notice: Libary Catalog May Be Unavailable March 30 from 5:30-7:00am

IMPACTED SERVICE:
Public Library Catalog

WHEN:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 from 5:30-7:00am

WHY:
Hardware repair.

DETAIL:
The catalog system needs to be taken offline for a hardware repair. During this process, all access to the catalog will be unavailable.

The order of search results - Keyword Indexes

Unfortunately, our library catalog isn't able to sort by relevancy. Instead, keyword search results show the newest resources first. For instance, if you do a Title Keyword search for Harry Potter, the catalog shows books such as The unofficial Harry Potter vocabulary builder and Political issues in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series before the actual Harry Potter books. This is because these other books also have the words "Harry Potter" in the title and are newer than the books from the Harry Potter series.

While publication date is the default sort for keyword indexes, the catalog also has the ability to sort by author, title, and media. The Author sort orders results by the author's last name. The Media sort attempts to order the search results by showing books first, followed by electronic resources, large print books, audio books, and videos. To change the default sort for a basic search, click the drop down menu labeled Sort by on the right side of the screen, choose the way you wish to sort, and click the arrow to re-order your results.

Quirk Alert: If you are using the Advanced Search, you must click Refine Search to change your sort order. If you forget and use the Sort by drop down menu on the same screen as your results, it will forget all the limits you specified on the advanced screen and change your results.

The Order of Search Results - Alphabetical Indexes

Not surpringly, alphabetical search indexes return your search results ordered alphabetically. So, if I choose a Title - Alphabetical search for minority report, I will see a list of results that are alphabetically close to my search term. In this case, I see results such as Minority report, The minority report and other stories, and Minority vendors.

When sorting results, our catalog ignores the first word if it is a definite or indefinite article. This includes words such as a, an, and the. Thus, in the example above, our catalog ignores the the in The minority report and other stories and instead alphabtizes this resource by the next word, minority. The catalog also ignores any initial articles in the search query. As a result, searching for minority report and the minority report returns the same results.

Quirk Alert: Normally, ignoring the first word if it is an article doesn't create a problem for the searcher. However, let's say you are searching for a book about the letter A called A Book. Since A is referring to the letter A, it isn't an article. However, our catalog isn't smart enough to realize this so if you try searching for a book, it will return results for book. The easiest way to fix this when searching is to place another article in front of your search like this. Our catalog only ignores the first word it sees so adding two articles in front gives us our desired result.

Bibliographic and Item Records

There are an overwhelming number of terms used in libraryland. However, the two I use the most are "bib record" and "item record."

Bib Records
A bib record, or bibliographic record, is an entry in our catalog containing information about a specific resource such as a book or DVD. Here is an example of the bib record for a movie called Hero. In this case, the bib record displays title, subject, additional title, upc, performers, genre, language, description, and more. In our catalog, each edition of a resource receives its own bib record. For example, we have multiple bib records for The Da Vinci Code that include an unabridged audio book, mass market paperback, large print, hardcover 1st edition, special illustrated edition, and more.

Our catalog may display three different views of a bib record. The first is a summary screen that shows multiple bib records on one page. For example, here are the results for a title keyword search for The Da Vinci Code. On this screen you see only partial bib information that includes the title, author, publisher, and publication date. The second bib record view is called the "full bib record." Here is an example of a full bib record for a mass market edition of The Da Vinci Code. This is where you see much more extensive information about the book such as the subjects and any additional note fields. The final bib record view is called the MARC Display. You can access this view by going into the full bib record for any resource, scrolling down to the bottom of the page, and clicking the MARC Display link. Most people don't need the detail that the MARC display reveals which is why it is hidden by default.

Item Records
An item record contains information about one physical copy of a resource. In our catalog, this includes information about where to find a specific item such as which library it's at, what part of the library it should be shelved in, the call number, and whether or not it is currently on the shelf.

If you search our catalog using a keyword search, you will retrieve the bib summary view of the resources that match your search. In addition, you will see up to two items per title. However, the library may actually own significantly more than two copies. To see a complete list of libraries that own this book, you must click on the record's title to retrieve the full bib view and scroll down to the Copy/Holding information section toward the bottom of the page. For example, the paperback version of It Happened One Autumn is owned by the Farr, Lincoln Park, Erie, Ft Lupton Public and School, and Carbon Valley libraries. However, our initial search result only displayed Farr and Lincoln Park's items.

In my next post, I'll discuss how the catalog determines what order the bib and item records appear.

Notice: Libary Catalog May Be Unavailable March 15 from 7:30-8:30am

IMPACTED SERVICE:
Public Library Catalog

WHEN:
March 15, 2010 from 7:30-8:30am

WHY:
Need to troubleshoot the library catalog system.

DETAIL:
The Library Catalog server is not accepting some changes that need to be made to the system. SirsiDynix, the catalog vendor, and I will be exploring the problem together. Once we identify the problem, the catalog will need to be restarted for the change to take effect. The restart should only take a couple of minutes and will occur sometime between 7:30-8:30am on Monday, March 15, 2010.

Stemming, Spell Check, and Wildcards

The High Plains Library District's catalog only retrieves results that exactly match your search terms. This is one reason it is very important that your search terms are spelled correctly. In addition, unlike many modern search engines, it doesn't support stemming ¹.

While our catalog doesn't provide spell check or stemming, it does allow the use of wildcard characters. A wildcard character is a symbol that can be used in place of other letters. In our catalog, the wildcard characters are an asterisk, *, and a question mark, ?.

How do I use wildcard characters?
The asterisk is a multi-character wildcard. This means it matches zero or more letters. For example, if I submit a catalog search for infant*, the catalog will return results that match infant, infante, infants, infantry, and more.

The question mark is a single-character wildcard. It can be used to replace exactly one letter. If I submit a catalog search for infant?, the catalog will return results that match infants and infante but not records that only contain the words infant or infantry.

Why would I want to use wildcard characters?
Wildcard characters are useful when you wish to force the catalog to do basic stemming or are unsure of how to correctly spell a word. For example, let's say I heard someone talking about the recipient of the 2009 Newbery Medal but all I remember is that the title contains the words grave and book. Searching for grave book returns no results. However, grave* book reveals the book I'm looking for is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

Speaking of the Newbery Medal, I can never remember if Newbery should have one "r" or two. If I can't remember while I'm doing my catalog search, I can find results for both Newbery and Newberry by searching for newber*y medal.

Obviously, it would be easier if our catalog automatically returned the results we want. However, until we upgrade to a smarter catalog, using wildcards can be very helpful.

¹Stemming is the process of finding the root word of your search term and retrieving results with the same root word. For example, if you search Google for the word cook, it may also return words such as cooks and cooking.

UPDATE: Our catalog still can't do stemming but our Did You Mean feature is finally live!

Library Catalog

The High Plains Library District owns a fantastic number of books, movies, music, and more. However, it can be tricky to search all these resources. The purpose of this blog is to offer tips on how to search the library catalog¹. In addition, I will use it to announce features that have been recently added and ask for your feedback on a particular enhancement or problem.

What is the library catalog?
Library catalogs were created to find books, movies, and other resources that the library owns. The High Plains Library District currently owns over 700,000 physical items. That's a lot stuff to wade through simply to find one book or DVD. Before computers, information on these items were typed up and filed in card catalogs. However, most libraries have replaced their card catalogs with an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) which is one part of a larger Integrated Library System (ILS).

What can I find in the library catalog?
The High Plains Library District catalog contains records for:

• Audio Books on CD, Online, Playaway, and Cassette Tape
• Book Club Bags
• Books
• eBooks
• Graphic Novels
• Magazines
• Movies and TV Series on DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and VHS
• Music

What won't I find in the library catalog?
The High Plains Library district subscribes to many online resources that cover a wide range of topics that include magazines such as Consumer Reports, online foreign language tutorials, and automotive repair. Unfortunately, our regular library catalog does not have the ability to search these databases. Instead, you can use our 360 Search to search for articles on a specific subject, our Journal Title Search to discover which magazines are available online or just browse our list of database resources.

In addition, the library catalog does not contain general information about the library such as location and hours. To find this information, visit our main website at http://www.mylibrary.us/ or go to our website search page.

¹Note for library staff: Unless otherwise stated, when I refer to the "library catalog" in this blog, I am specifically referring to HIP, the patron catalog found on our PAC computers and via the internet.