Hi, Don,
Although this is a separate issue from the current proposed changes,
it's an interesting question and one I know you have raised before.
It's a question we've just begun to discuss here, and I feel like we
need more experience with browse to decide exactly how it should work.
The fact that headings in records work so differently than the headings
in the browse display is why we chose to use a different separator in
browse. We had some trouble when we first moved to Evergreen
understanding how subject headings in records worked until we changed
the separator to the greater than sign, which helped people see these as
breadcrumbs. The headings in the browse display are treated as one long
string, and we thought the dash conveyed that better.
When a user is looking at a record like this one:
http://evergreen.noblenet.org/eg/opac/record/1458151?locg=1
They will see some very specific headings like this:
Children > United States > History > 18th century > Activity programs
The user can currently decide to click on only part of the heading to do
a less specific search -- for example, if they click on "18th century"
they will find a lot of books on children in that era that aren't
activity programs, which can be useful.
I can think of a few ways the heading links from records could work:
1. The same way they do now
2. Take you to the browse index page in the neighborhood of that
heading: http://bit.ly/browseoption1
3. Take you to the directly to the records using the heading (the
equivalent of clicking on the heading in the browse list in #2.) In
this case, there is only one record with this heading so you'd be
jumping back to the record. Perhaps with this option, the headings in
the record would need to show the number of records, like the browse
page does.
4. A hybrid model that lets the user choose just a partial heading (for
example, Children > United States > History) and it's treated one of the
options in #3.
We've only had browse up for a couple of weeks and have not really given
this issue enough thought to know how we'd like the headings in records
to work, and that may be true of others as well. But this is definitely
an issue that I think the community will want to discuss, and to make
sure that we get as much input as possible from public service librarians.
Elizabeth
On 8/29/2014 10:45 AM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
Hi Donald,
This proposal wouldn't make any changes to the subject links on the bib
record. It would only affect the display of subjects in the browse list.
Thanks for the feedback!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
[email protected]
Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
#evergreen IRC: kmlussier
On 8/29/2014 10:42 AM, Donald Butterworth wrote:
Both these proposals sound like a great improvement to me. One
question, will the hot links for the dashed subject entries on the
bibliographic screen point to the subject browse result screen or the
subject keyword result screen?
Personally I would like to see all hot links on the bib screen point
to browse result screens. e.g. author/editor/contributor, series,
subject, title, and call number.
How does that sound everyone?
Don
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Kathy Lussier <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi all,
Recently, NOBLE made some local customizations to
config.metabib_field to improve browse search on their local
system. They would like to contribute a branch to make these
changes in Evergreen for 2.next, but I wanted to share their
changes with the community first to see if can generate some
community consensus around the changes.
1. We would like to submit a branch that enables browse search for
the complete (All Subjects) field, and disables it for the all of
the other fields that are included in the subject class. This
branch would also add a -- joiner so that the fields properly
display separators. Currently, Evergreen is indexing the
individual subdivisions. By enabling browse for the complete
field, we see the full heading in the subject browse. By disabling
browse for all of the other subject indexes, we remove
subdivisions like handbooks, manuals, etc. as something that is
currently being displayed as a standalone heading (not very useful
to the user.) This branch would address the bugs reported in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1331506 and in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1331524.
Based on previous discussions on this topic, I'm fairly sure most
end users will prefer these defaults. However, I just want to make
sure this is desired before we submit any changes.
The changes would be supplied in the seed data for new Evergreen
installs, but, because we don't want to break any customizations
that may have been made to existing index definitions, most likely
won't be applied for upgrades. However, we could probably supply a
SQL statement in the release notes that lets existing sites know
how to make these changes if they want them.
2. The second change we would like to make affects the ease with
which users can find titles starting with initial articles.
Currently, most of the title indexes honor non-filing indicators,
so that a title like "The Help" will ignore "the" and file "The
Help" with the H's. If a patron inadvertently enters "the help,"
there is a warning that can be enabled telling the patron they may
want to try the search without "the." However, in investigating
the bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1321780, we
discovered that the 740 field is being handled a little
differently because it is being indexed twice, once with the
non-filing characters and once without . For example, in one
catalog, "the heart sutra" is being indexed with the h's, but is
also being indexed with the t's (for the).
We would like to propose that this approach be used for all title
indexes. With this approach, the user will find a title whether or
not they include the initial articles in their search. It reduces
the amount of training that needs to be done to teach users how to
use the catalog.
Of course, these additional indexes could remain a customization
that is just handled locally, but, since it makes it easier for a
patron or student to use browse, we think it's worthy of
consideration for the default indexes.
Both of these changes have already been made to the NOBLE catalog.
You can see these changes in action at
http://evergreen.noblenet.org/eg/opac/browse.
Kathy
--
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128 <tel:%28508%29%20343-0128>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
#evergreen IRC: kmlussier
--
Don Butterworth
Faculty Associate / Librarian III
B.L. Fisher Library
Asbury Theological Seminary
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
(859) 858-2227
--
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
26 Cherry Hill Drive
Danvers MA 01923
E-mail: [email protected]
