Searching Our Patron Catalog: Fun with Special Characters!

Sometimes our patron catalog makes me question my sanity. Today, I was reading an interview on Public Libraries Online with Joshilyn Jackson about her newest book, Someone Else’s Love Story. It looked interesting so I copied the title, from the website, and then pasted it into our catalog. Our catalog claimed we didn't have it which I thought was odd. I went to Amazon, found the ISBN, came back to our search, and pasted the ISBN into the ISBN index. This time our catalog did find the book. Why?

I examined the title again. It looked the same as what I had typed in. I came up with a hypothesis: perhaps our catalog had trouble searching single quotes. I pasted the title in again and substituted an asterisk instead of a single quote like this: Someone Else*s Love Story . This time it worked! I erased the asterisk and typed a single quote in just to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Wait, it worked with the single quote also. I copied the title again, and once again it didn't work. I stared at the screen in frustration.

Finally, I found the problem. It turns out that our catalog has absolutely no problem searching for titles where you use the single quote that appears on your keyboard ('). What it can't do is use right single quotes (’). Look closely, can you see the difference?

Single Quote	Right Single Quote
'	’

So the moral of the story is, if you copy and paste something into our catalog and retrieve no results, makes sure your copy source didn't use special single/double quotes. If it did, erase that part and retype it using your keyboard.

As an aside, we're hoping to move to a new ILS system next year. I double checked and this particular problem should not be an issue in our new system.

Finding eBooks in our Catalog

Over a year without a single post . . . As you can tell, I've been spending less time working on catalog search tips. We're currently in the process of looking for a new integrated library system (ILS). Perhaps once we've selected our new ILS I'll start posting more again.

However, today's topic is finding eBooks within our catalog. At the moment, our library district subscribes to two ebook vendors: Overdrive and Axis360. We've been using Overdrive for years now and the product works pretty well. However, I personally find epub picture books are often formatted poorly. For instance, the picture may appear on one page but you have to swipe to the next page to see the text. Axis360, on the other hand, is a fairly new product. I find its interface still has quite a few quirks. However, the picture books look gorgeous on my iPad when I use the Blio format.

Searching for eBooks by Subject
Most people probably search for eBooks by going to Overdrive's or Axis360's site directly. The upside to doing it this way is you can immediately tell whether or not the book is available. However, I haven't had very good luck when I'm searching for a specific genre of book. For instance, the other weekend, I was looking for Christian Fiction books on Overdrive's site. I went to the Advanced Search, clicked the Subject drop-down menu and chose Christian Fiction. I got 24 results. That didn't sound right to me.

This same search can be done via HIP, our catalog. Go to http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ and choose the Advanced Search. Click the first drop down box and choose Subject Keyword then type "Christian Fiction". Then, under the Format limit, chose "Books - eBooks, Downloadable" and click the red arrow to search. This time I get 187 results which sounds more realistic. Choosing the "Books - eBooks, Downloadable" format option will retrieve both our Overdrive and Axis360 ebook collections. However, if you have a preference, you can change the search to get just one or the other.

To retrieve eBooks from a specific vendor, go back to the Advanced search page and enter your search terms like we did before. However, this time change the second drop down box to be General Keyword and then next to it type "Overdrive" or "Axis360" (without spaces), depending on which vendor results you want. I'm going to specify Overdrive books. This time you can see that I've retrieved about 167 results.

Searching for Picture eBooks
Picture books usually get lumped into the "juvenile" subject headings, even within our catalog. However, the audience for Boy + Bot is significantly different than the audience for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I find it very tiresome to wade through all the "juvenile fiction" results looking for ebooks that might be picture books. However, the advanced search in our catalog has the ability to limit to "easy" ebooks*.

As I mentioned above, while the Axis360 interface is still quirky, I do like the Blio format it provides better for picture books. I'm going on a plane trip next week and need a way to keep my 4-year-old son occupied. As a result, I want a list of all picture books available from Axis360. First, I go to the catalog's Advanced Search page. I click the drop down box and choose General Keyword and then type Axis360. Next, I go to the format limit and select "Books - eBooks, Downloadable." Finally, under Audience I choose "Children - Easy" and click the red search arrow. My search returns 143 results.

As I mentioned before, the downside to searching for eBooks via our catalog is you have to click on the vendor link before you know whether or not it's available for immediate checkout. I'm hoping our next catalog will have better integration so it's no longer necessary to choose between specific subject/audience searches and limiting to "available now" items. Until then, I go directly to the vendor sites when I need books that are immediately available and usually search through our catalog when I'm looking for specific subjects or picture books.

*UPDATE: I should mention that I have tried the grade level facets on Overdrive's site and find it works reasonably well for picture books. My main complaint is, as far as I can tell, there isn't a way to start out doing a grade level browse. I have to first enter some sort of search query and at that point can narrow it by grade level. I've also tried Axis360 grade level search and personally find it a bit tricky to use. However, that could just be me.