Excellent! I just tried it and that solved the problem. Let me admit something that may make me sound like a bit of a weirdo. I am interested in statistics and for the shear fun of it when I encounter a list of almost anything that there are a lot of I like to do various statistical analyses on them. This often means taking a random unbiased sample. I have figured out that if I go to Random.org and generate a random number between 1 and about 25,000,000 and enter that number in the Open Library key word field with the letters OL immediately before it and the letter M immediately after it I get a completely random book from the over twenty-four million listings. I was having trouble doing that with the accessible books though. It was either going through that tedious process I described of advancing one page at a time or searching the entire catalog in the manner I described in which case I would hit approximately one accessible book in fifty or so trials. The suggestion you made solves the problem. As I said, I only do statistical analyses for the fun of it, but I can well imagine that with a resource like Open Library there might be any number of people who might be doing statistical analyses for serious research projects. For those of us who are not very familiar with computer search algorithms it still might be well to have that edit field I mentioned to accompany search results. As for myself, though, now that you have shown me how to do it I am satisfied.
_ _ _ "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." - Rosa Luxemburg The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "Open Library -- general discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 9:53 PM Subject: Re: [ol-discuss] User interaction > You're quite right, Roger. Our more general categories have a *ton* of > books. But, I think that's what you get, more or less, if you are looking > in a general category like that. You might find that even if you gave the > search another single keyword, or perhaps a "subject:apples" qualifier, > you'd be zooming in pretty quickly. > > To answer your question though, the search results pages URLs act somewhat > like what you describe. If you'll notice the end part of this URL: > > http://openlibrary.org/search?q=roger&subject_facet=Accessible+book&page=6 > > It's looking at Page 6 of results for all the accessible books that match > "Roger" (either in title or author and some other fields). You can always > change that number directly in the URL (though that might lead to no hits > if you, say, entered page=100000 or something). > > So, general advice would be to add a least one more keyword to the search, > even if it's another general one, like, "history". > > Cheers, > george > > > > >> As a matter of fact, just as your email came in I was on the site >> learning >> some more about the search. Here is a suggestion. Sometimes a very large >> number of results can come in. For example, when I search for accessible >> books I get over six hundred thousand results. By the way, I am blind so >> I >> am especially interested in those. To narrow down those results I can >> either >> click something in the zoom in feature or add more key words. However, I >> might not know that precisely what I want, but may suspect that it is >> somewhere in the middle of the results, depending on how I sort them. >> There >> are a hundred results per page and at the end of the zoom in feature I >> can >> choose from the next ten pages. That allows me the ability to get to the >> first thousand results quite easily. But there are some six thousand >> pages >> in those more than six hundred thousand results. If I was trying to get >> to >> the middle of them I could click page ten and then click the next page >> and >> so forth. That would get me to the middle of the results eventually, but >> it >> would be a long and tedious process. What would be really handy would be >> to >> have an edit field in which I could type a page number and go directly to >> that page of results. The example I gave of not knowing exactly what I >> want, >> but thinking it might be in the middle of the results is really another >> way >> of saying that I would like to browse a subject area that has a lot of >> books >> in it. That edit field for typing in a page number would facilitate >> browsing >> considerably. As it is, one has to either refine one's subject or just >> browse through the first ten or so pages of results. I am suggesting a >> way >> to skim through thousands of pages of a subject. Could an edit field for >> the >> page number of results be added? >> >> >> _ _ _ >> >> "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." - Rosa Luxemburg >> >> >> The Militant: >> http://www.themilitant.com >> Pathfinder Press: >> http://www.pathfinderpress.com >> Granma International: >> http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: <[email protected]> >> To: "Open Library -- general discussion" <[email protected]> >> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 9:16 PM >> Subject: Re: [ol-discuss] User interaction >> >> >>> Hi Roger, >>> >>> Just FYI - there's a little search cheat sheet hidden under the "Zoom >>> In" >>> heading on the right-hand side of search results pages: >>> >>> http://openlibrary.org/search?q=roger >>> >>> As well as being able to use the facets listed on the right hand side, >>> you >>> can write search queries as you search: >>> >>> http://openlibrary.org/search/howto >>> >>> I agree that it's a bit tricky to find out how to join the lists - we'll >>> try to improve that. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> george >>> >>> >>>> I am a Wikipedia user who has made an occasional edit, but I don't >>>> spend >>>> a >>>> lot of time on it and I have never visited the Village Pump. I get the >>>> impression that it is a message board. If that is correct I think this >>>> mailing list is better. It is more convenient to read posts when I am >>>> checking my email on a daily basis anyway as opposed to remembering to >>>> go >>>> to >>>> a certain site and perhaps logging in and then sorting through the >>>> posts. >>>> I >>>> will add that it was not hard at all to sign up for this mailing list. >>>> The >>>> only problem was finding it. After scouring the FAQ I was trying to >>>> find >>>> some place on the Open Library site that could give me tips to help me >>>> make >>>> better use of the search feature. In that process I came across the >>>> information about subscribing to this list. I never did find the >>>> information >>>> I was looking for on searching for books. I now think that is because >>>> the >>>> search engine is not sophisticated enough to do much fancy with it >>>> anyway, >>>> but it still might be a good idea to make the information on the two >>>> email >>>> lists easier to find. >>>> >>>> >>>> _ _ _ >>>> >>>> "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." - Rosa Luxemburg >>>> >>>> >>>> The Militant: >>>> http://www.themilitant.com >>>> Pathfinder Press: >>>> http://www.pathfinderpress.com >>>> Granma International: >>>> http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "Karen Coyle" <[email protected]> >>>> To: <[email protected]> >>>> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 5:00 PM >>>> Subject: Re: [ol-discuss] User interaction >>>> >>>> >>>>> Quoting Alex Stinson <[email protected]>: >>>>> >>>>>> In regards to the comments on user interaction, something in the way >>>>>> of >>>>>> the >>>>>> Wikipedia Village pump >>>>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump) >>>>>> or the Wikipedia Help Desk >>>>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk) would >>>>>> be useful >>>>> >>>>> There's also the way that LibraryThing does it: it lets people set up >>>>> "discussion groups" based on any topic that people want. So that way >>>>> the Romance novel people and the Urdu poetry people can have their own >>>>> places. If there are general cataloging issues, there could be a >>>>> general cataloging discussion group where people talk about "best >>>>> practices" or discuss a non-obvious fix for a problem. >>>>> >>>>> kc >>>>> >>>>> instead of several layers of form's you have to fill out before >>>>>> getting on this discussion mailing list. It makes the whole >>>>>> discussion >>>>>> process more transparent and will likely get more thoughts from more >>>>>> casual >>>>>> observers who don't want to comit those extra steps to get here. I >>>>>> almost >>>>>> walked away from this mailing list because it was taking a little >>>>>> while >>>>>> and >>>>>> I couldn't access the Archive of the discussion at >>>>>> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/ol-discuss/ . I stuck >>>>>> around >>>>>> because I realized that this could be a serious problem for you all >>>>>> in >>>>>> engaging your contribution community and really support what you are >>>>>> doing >>>>>> with this project. >>>>>> >>>>>> Alex >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Karen Coyle >>>>> [email protected] http://kcoyle.net >>>>> ph: 1-510-540-7596 >>>>> m: 1-510-435-8234 >>>>> skype: kcoylenet >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Ol-discuss mailing list >>>>> [email protected] >>>>> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss >>>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to >>>>> [email protected] >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Ol-discuss mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss >>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to >>>> [email protected] >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Ol-discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss >>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to >>> [email protected] >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Ol-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to >> [email protected] >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Ol-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > [email protected] _______________________________________________ Ol-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]
