Although it has been a few years since I actually helped patrons in a library, they do ask why a record came up if they can't see their search term. Particularly, if they are searching for an author or title and something totally unexpected is in the result set. It was not unusual for a patron new to using computers to ask, actually. They are trying to understand how to search and whether they've made an error in constructing the search.
Even now it is not unusual to get a question via library staff asking why a record came up for a particular search. Although, it is more common to be asked why something didn't come up. The real estate may be precious, but I would err in providing more information to users. Elaine J. Elaine Hardy Library Services Manager - Collections & Reference Georgia Public Library Service, A Unit of the University System of Georgia 1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235-7128 404.235-7201, fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.georgialibraries.org -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Scott Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 9:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-DEV] Introduction and Question On 13/09/2007, Jason Etheridge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: It could be useful info, I think, for a small population: developers interested in tweaking search algorithms, librarians doing detective work who want to peek under the covers, and for the atypical patron. If you're going that far, you might as well show the query after processing as well (strikeout text for stopwords, greyed-out text for stems that were removed, etc). That being said, I don't think most people are going to care how a particular item was matched with the search string - not enough to make it a visible part of every retrieved record. That screen real estate is precious! If you could make it unobtrusive (hide it by default, surfacing it only with a deliberately set user preference, or a tiny little "How did you find me?" link), it could be nice. -- Dan Scott Laurentian University
