Databases and Paperback Books

I'm hoping to start writing regular posts again soon. Until then, two quick notes:

First, our cataloging department has started to catalog some of our databases. You can see examples here.

Second, the cataloging department is also putting a "paperbacks" designation in the MARC record. This means that you can now use our Subject Keyword catalog search to find many of our paperbacks. In addition, when viewing multiple editions, it's easier to see which edition of a book is the paperback version. For an example, do a Title Keyword search for Water for Elephants.

My Search for DVDs

I pride myself as an expert searcher. So, it really drives me insane when I get tripped up by how our catalog searches.

My family and I will be flying for Christmas and I decided one of the easiest ways to keep my son quiet on the flight would be to bring some videos along for him to watch. Up till this point, my son has only watched a few videos I've checked out from the library. However, we're going to be gone for 3 weeks which is longer than one can check out videos, even if I renew it once. I decided I would check out a couple of Elmo videos from the library to preview them and then buy one or two to take with us on our trip.

Since I just wanted videos, not books or music, I went to our catalog's Advanced Page. Next to Title Keyword I entered Elmo. Under Format I chose Video Recording - DVD and then clicked the red arrow to start my search. I retrieved around 17 videos. This was great except I remembered there was an Elmo video about pets that my son really liked that wasn't included in this list. If it wasn't included, what other videos might I be missing?

After a moment or two of thinking, I realized that the video I previously checked out was an "Elmo's World" video. Our catalog wasn't smart enough to realize that Elmo's and Elmo are essentially the same words. This is because our catalog doesn't have stemming capabilities. Once I figured out the problem, the solution was simple. I added an asterisk after Elmo so my search now looks like this. Since the asterisk works as a wildcard character in our catalog, it will find all DVDs with the words Elmo and Elmo's.

New Catalog is Up!

Yesterday we started the upgrade for our integrated library system (ILS) which includes the catalog. While we are still working on upgrading some parts of the ILS, the catalog has been updated and most of the bugs squashed. To use it, visit http://catalog.mylibrary.us/.

New Features:

• Did You Mean
• Series Information is now located in the left column of the full bib record. See The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for an example.
• We also have some additional content that shows below the item information on the page. We are still playing with the formatting of both this content and the series content so this may change in the future.
• Searching using boolean operators has changed. See Eileen's Video Tutorial for more information
• Advanced Limits can now be removed without re-submitting a search. See Eileen's Video Tutorial for more information
• Staff and patrons can now email search results (before staff email addresses didn't work). After retrieving search results, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and enter a subject and your email address.
• More DVD images
• The Holds page now has a "Suspend Until" column. This lets you see which holds you have suspended and when they will reactivate.
• There is now a difference in notation between holds deleted in the public versus staff catalog interfaces.

For those of you that subscribed to HIP RSS feeds, that functionality isn't available yet but I expect it will be fixed in the next couple of days.

Little Book Icons

Have you ever wondered what the little book icon at the end of some titles but not others means? For example, take a look at this search. The first entry doesn't have a book icon at the end of the title but the second one does. Why? Theoretically, the book icon is suppose to mean that the library you are looking at owns a copy of that book. However, this is really only useful if you're either using a dedicated catalog computer in the library or manually going to that library's catalog profile. Our main catalog that you access at http://catalog.mylibrary.us/ is associated with the Farr library. So, if you see little book icons on it, that means that the item is available at Farr. How do you access an individual library's profile manually? Use the links below:

• 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

See Item Order in the Catalog for more information on ways a library's profile matters.

Series Trial

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been exploring a couple of different vendors that add series information to our catalog. Currently, we have a trial for series info from both Syndetics and NoveList Select in our test catalog. I am very interested in receiving feedback on which service you feel is better.

A Couple of Notes

• For now, both the Syndetics and Novelist series info, if it exists, will be in the left bar. The Novelist series info has a label of "Titles in Series from NoveList" whereas the Syndetics label just says "Series." Please focus on the content, not placement, of the information. Once we decide on which service to use, I will work more on the formating.
• NoveList is doing some weird stuff. The first time I went to Interview with the Vampire, only the Syndetics series info showed but now both NoveList and Syndetics series info shows. However, this might have just been a momentary blip. Let me know if you're having the same experiences.
• NoveList loads very slowly. When doing your own comparisons, make sure the page has completely finished before you determine whether or not NoveList has series info for a specific title. I talked to a NoveList tech about this and he said one reason this is happening is because they wait for all the other content on the page to load before it loads. This is so patrons who just want a call number don't have to wait around for NoveList to load first. However, he also said they are working on speeding this up and hope to have it faster by the end of the year.
• At this point, Syndetics doesn’t have links but it does have the order specified. NoveList doesn’t show the order yet but that is a feature that is suppose to be in their next release.
• All the NoveList links point to our live production catalog. So, if you click on a link, make sure that you go back to the test catalog before trying any additional series info. When testing, make sure you always see the big red “TEST” image in the upper left corner of the catalog.

Some Examples to Try:

• Redemption by Karen Kingsbury - (Novelist)
• Third Degree by James Patterson - (NoveList and Syndetics)
• The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan - (Novelist)
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - (NoveList and Syndetics)

Other NoveList Content
At the moment, I'm not officially evaluating the other NoveList Select content. However, I would be interested in hearing any opinions you have about it. My first impressions are that sometimes the NoveList Similar Titles is more relevant than LibraryThing for fiction but isn't at all useful for non-fiction titles. I also find the "Similar Authors" to be an interesting feature.

Catalog Unavailable Labor Day

In prepartion for our ILS upgrade on November 11, I will be working on the catalog on Labor Day, September 6, 2010. During this time period the patron catalog may be slow or completely unresponsive. Services should be back to normal by the time the library opens on Tuesday.

Patron Catalog Not Searching New Items (Problem Fixed)

UPDATE: This probablem has now been fixed. If you encounter any more problems, send me an email or leave a comment.

The patron catalog's keyword searches have been corrupted. I expect this problem will be fixed by 12:00pm MDT today, 9/2/2010. I have uploaded a backup of the indexes that is current as of August 15. However, any items that were added after that date will not appear unless you do a Title - Alphabetical search for them. Any search index that ends with the word “keyword” has been affected by this problem. If you cannot find what you are looking for, contact one of our library locations as they can access the catalog via a different interface that is still working.

This is just a search indexing problem so you should still be able to place requests for anything you can find and look up account information such as items currently checked out, etc.

I am currently in the process of reindexing the keyword searches to bring them up to date. However, this process will take several hours and I am currently estimating that it will be finished around noon today. I will post an update to this entry once everything is back to normal.