3 Advanced Search Limit Changes

This Sunday I added a new mp3 format to the advaced search page as well as making it possible to limit to non-fiction TV series. In addition, I renamed Audio eBooks to say Books - Audio eBooks.

Limiting by MP3 CD
Our district has started buying audio books in an MP3 CD format. Typically, CDs come in two varieties: audio and data. Audio CDs were specifically designed to play in a normal CD player. By constrast, data CDs were designed to be read by computers. MP3 CDs are techincally data CDs so while newer cd players likely can play them, older CD players will not. For example, the CD player that came with my 2003 Toyota cannot play MP3 CD audio books but the car stereo we bought several years later can.

There are a couple advantages of MP3 CDs that, depending on your circumstances, can outweight their disadvantages. First, an entire audio book is often on one MP3 CD. This means if your car can play MP3 files, you won't have to try switching CDs while going 75 mph down I-25. Second, MP3 files are easier to transfer from a CD to your portable music player, such as an iPod. If you do transfer library audio books to your iPod, you should delete them when your check-up period is over. However, unlike Overdrive audio books, your computer will not prompt you to delete them.

To see a list of all the MP3 CD audio books we own:

• Click on the Advanced Search link in our catalog
• Next to Title Keyword type an *
• In the Format section scroll down and click on Books - MP3 CD
• Click the Red Arrow to begin your search

Here are the results. This limit also works with the Audience Adult - Fiction and Adult - Non-Fiction limits.

Limiting by Non-Fiction TV Series
We've been able to search for TV Series for a while. However, we now have a non-fiction TV series collection code so we can limit specifically to non-fiction TV series also. This is how you do it:

• Click on the Advanced Search link in our catalog
• Next to Title Keyword type an *
• In the Format section scroll down and click on Video Recording - TV Series
• In the Audience section highlight Adult - Non-Fiction
• Click the Red Arrow to begin your search

Here are the results.

Audio eBooks
As I mentioned above, I renamed Audio eBooks to say Books - Audio eBooks. I did this in order to have a consistent naming scheme for all our audio book labels. To find all audio ebooks that are currently in our catalog:

• Click on the Advanced Search link in our catalog
• Next to Title Keyword type an *
• In the Format section scroll down and click on Books - Audio eBook
• Click the Red Arrow to begin your search

Here are the results.

A couple of notes about Overdrive Audio eBooks. First, many of the Overdrive books do not have catalog records that we can download from other places easily. This means that each record has to be painstakenly created by our catalogers, which takes time. As a result, for now, if you are looking specifically for Overdrive books, it's best to go directly to our Overdrive Website. Second, there's only one collection code for Audio eBooks, regardless of whether they are fiction or non-fiction. So, the Adult - Fiction and Adult - Non-Fiction limits won't work.

Item vs. Bib Hold Requests

As most of you know, one of the very nice features in our catalog is the ability to request items that are either checked out or at another location. However, there are two different ways to request a title. You can either do a "bib level" request or an "item level request." (See this post for a refresher on the difference between a bib and item record.)

Placing a Bib Level Request
Bib level requests are the most common type of requests. Let's assume that I was interested in requesting Brain Rules for Baby, by John Medina. There are two different ways that a bib level request can be placed. Let's say that I started searching for this book using a Title Keyword search for the term brain rules. As you can see, this returns a couple of results. Each result shows a Request Item button on the right side of the screen. Clicking this button will result in a bib level request. At this point, I could also choose to click on the correct title to go to the full bib display for this title. In this case, there is another Request Item button that shows in the bottom right corner of the screen that will also allow me to make a bib level request.

Placing an Item Level Request
There are cases in which an item level request is more appropriate. To place an item level request, first go to the full bib of the record you are interested in. Then scroll down to the Copy/Holding information section. This section shows each physical copy that is owned by the library district. Find the specific copy you are interested in requesting and then click the corresponding Request Copy link on the right side of the screen.

Disadvantages of Item Level Holds
There are trade-offs to using either the bib or the item level request. The biggest problem with an item level request is that you could be passed by in the queue if a book came available other than the specific copy you requested.

For instance, let's pretend that I was interested in a book that was currently checked out at all the locations that owned it. Because I tend to visit Carbon Valley the most, I chose to place an item level hold for it. However, Farr Library's copy was returned before Carbon Valley's copy. If I had placed a bib level request for this book, once the book was checked in at Farr, it would have told the system to place it in the courier to send down to me at Carbon Valley. However, because I told the system I only wanted Carbon Valley's copy, the Farr copy will skip me and go to the second person in the queue.

The other major danger of placing an item level hold is that even though the item looks like it's available at your chosen library, it could have been stolen or misplaced and that copy cannot be found. When the librarians run the list of holds to pull, they will search for this item. However, if they can't find it, they will put it in trace status and will look for it later in more detail. If they still can't find it, they will change it to a missing status. Because you placed an item level hold, you are stuck with requesting that specific item during this entire process even if you could have received a copy from another library faster.

Advantages of an Item Level Request
In general, I suggest performing a bib level request. However, there are cases where an item level request is more appropriate.

• For newer TV Series, the entire season is checked out at one time. However, some of our older TV Series still have each disc attached to a different item record. Thus, you must do an item level request for disc 1 and then disc 2 and so on. You can see an example of this type of record if you look at Babylon 5: Season 1.
• Magazines are a similar example to the one above. In order to request a specific issue, you must choose the specific copy request option. You can see an example of this with Martha Stewart Living.
• Guidebooks are another example where each item may be different than the overall bib. In general, each item will be a different year that the guidebook was published. You can see Rick Steves' Best of Europe for an example of this type of record.
• You see an item is currently checked in at the library you plan to visit. There is some risk here because as I noted above, the item may be stolen or misplaced. Also, if it's a very popular item, another borrow may pick up the item and check it out before our staff have a chance to pull it for you. The borrower holding an item in their hand always has priority over a borrower who requested the item but it hasn't been pulled for them yet.

Where does a Bib Level Request come from?
Currently, Horizon isn't doing any location prioritization at all. Requests appear on the pull list of whichever library owns the item and is the next to run their pull list. This means that if I did a bib level request for an item that was available at both Erie and Carbon Valley and chose a pickup location of Carbon Valley, I may get the Erie copy if Erie staff run their pull list first. I have heard a rumor that there is a way to force the item to appear on the pull list of the pickup location if there are multiple copies available. However, this is something that I will have to explore further before we can try implementing it.

Browse Books via Lexile Measures

On Sunday I turned on a new feature, provided by LibraryThing, in our online catalog that allows our borrowers to browse books via Lexile Measures.

Lexile measures are one way to estimate how easy a book is to read. It is important to note that this measure is only intended to indicate how complicated the book is to read, not whether or not the subject matter is appropriate or interesting for a certain age group. Lexile measures do not correspond directly to specific grade levels. However, Lexile.com does provide a chart of "typical Lexile ranges" for each grade level.

To see an example of a Lexile measure, search for Zen Ties by Jon J Muth. If it exists, the reading level appears in the left column under series info or the professional review links. In this case, the Lexile measure is 460L. To see other books with the same Lexile level, click on the 460L link. A small window will pop up with other books that fall into this category. You can then click on the links for those books to get more information.

In addition to browsing books that exactly match your current book, you can also browse a range of Lexile measures. To do this, click on the 460L link as before. When the window pops open, you'll see sliders at the top that indicate the minimum and maximum measures that you wish to display. Click on the sliders, move them to your desired level range, and then click the Search button. Note: It may take several seconds for large search ranges to return results.

It is not necessary to first look up a book before browsing the Lexile measures. I've also added a link to this feature on our Advanced Search page. Below the text boxes and above the limits there is a link that says, "Click for Lexile Reading Level Search." If you click on this, a window will pop up similar to what happens when you click a reading measure link within a book's record. Like above, click on the sliders to move them to your desired range and then click the Search button. Note: There is a slight problem with how I implemented this box so if the first time you click the link the window doesn't pop up, wait a couple of seconds and try it again. I'll be researching ways to resolve this nagging problem.

Unfortunately, at this time there isn't a way to combine the Lexile browse with any other search criteria. Also, I have heard reports that some of our catalog-only computers within the library are having trouble with the sliding feature. I'm working on figuring out what the problem is and seeing if there is a solution.

You can read LibraryThing's official announcement here or read about their initial implementation in their personal catalog product.

What do you think of this new feature? Do you think the Lexlie Reading Level Search" link would be better on some other page than the advanced search?

"New At the Library" Changes

Our patron catalog has several tabs and subtabs. One of the "Books, DVDs, CDs . . ." subtab is labeled New at the Library. This subtab provides a list of searches for borrowers to easily see the new items we have within specific genres and subjects.

Last week, one of our librarians asked me to run a report of our most popular genres and subjects for a post she is planning for our Facebook page. This is one of my favorite type of reports to do :) I ran it and then, upon looking at the most popular non-fiction subject headings, realized that our "New Non-Fiction" section didn't reflect what people are checking out.

Below is a list of the new categories that have either been expanded or added to the "New Non-Fiction" links:

• Colorado Guidebooks
• Crafts
• Drawing
• Exercise and Fitness
• Job Hunting and Careers
• Knitting, Crocheting, and More
• Parenting
• Personal Finance
• Pregnancy
• Relationships
• Self-Improvement and Living Well
• Weight Loss and Health

When you have a chance, take a look and let me know what you think.

As an aside, I love that we have a Star Wars Craft Book :)

Note: If you are using a non-Internet Explorer browser, you may see that the columns don't line up correctly on the "New at the Library" page. This is a known bug with our vendor. I'm planning to delve in to the code and hopefully fix that soon.

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.