Wednesday, March 31, 2010

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:

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