This is an interesting and useful idea (especially for catalogers!),
but I'm not sure patrons would dig the intervening screen when
performing the keyword subject search. It strikes that the function
would be rather like a disambiguation page on Wikipedia. It might be
nice might be nice if something like this displayed along with the
search results, or if you got a link at the top of your search results
directing you to it.
---
Sarah Childs
Technical Services Department Head
Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library
250 North Fifth Street
Zionsville, IN 46077
317-873-3149 x13330
[email protected]
On 2014-06-20 10:08, Elizabeth B. Thomsen wrote:
I think that Don is talking about something different -- a way to
keyword search subject headings.
Right now we have two subject search options:
On the Basic and Advanced search screen, choosing subject and
entering search terms gets you all the records that have that term in
subject headings. "Show me all the bib records that have the word
Puffins somewhere in the subject headings."
On the Browse search, you choose subject and enter search terms, and
you are shown the alphabetical section of the index that starts with
whatever you entered. You get to a list of subject headings and their
subdivisions (at least if you've done your indexes as described
earlier in this thread, and they have the subdivisions like
Bibliomations.
Keyword searching of subject headings would be saying "Show me all
the subject headings that include these search terms." If you entered
"Washington," for example, you'd get something like this:
George Washington Bridge (New York, N.Y.) (3)
Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915 (30)
Washington, George 1732-1783 (100)
That would be a great feature, something like "Find Headings," but I
wouldn't want to see it replace either the way subject searching on
basic advanced or subject browse works now.
On 6/20/2014 9:45 AM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
On 6/20/2014 9:20 AM, Donald Butterworth wrote:
I agree with Janet, that the whole subject phrase needs to be kept
together so that only the limited set displays when clicking on the
phrase. There are lots of DLC authority records that include a main
subject and subdivisions.
I'm confused now. Are we still talking about the subject browse index
or
are we talking about the bib record? If we're talking about the
subject
browse index, I would agree, primarily because the user is presumably
seeing a hierarchy of subjects where the broader term may be directly
above the term they are looking at and the narrower term is directly
below. The current behavior is that the link keeps the subject phrase
together when you click on it, so no changes would be required here.
If we're talking about the bib record, I have to say I put a lot of
faith into what I'm sure is highly-funded usability testing done by
Amazon. As Dan mentioned, the current link behavior for subject
headings
is similar to what Amazon is using. If the Evergreen community were
to
do a coordinated batch of usability testing (probably not a bad idea)
and found that end users were indeed confused by the behavior, I
might
think differently, but I personally like the ability to click higher
in
the subject heading to broaden my search.
Kathy
--
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
26 Cherry Hill Drive
Danvers MA 01923
E-mail: [email protected]
