RE: skipping initial articles

[CSeeman@xxxxxxxxxx]

Folks -- 

While I agree with the posters who point out the problems associated
with dropping the initial articles in searches, I think I'd like to toss
out the other side of the coin.  

The core nature of the OPAC option to strip the initial articles out of
a search has little to do with the indexing, but how it is searched by
the patrons.  For example, if you look at the book "A separate peace",
you will find a SKIP value of "2" and a second indicator of the 245 as
"2" to start indexing on the third character.  While the MARC tag and
index rules controls the way that the title gets indexed, it does not
control the way that it gets searched.  So the above title gets indexed
under "s" for separate, not "a".  Yet this OPAC option allows for both
of the below entered searches to get to the bib record: 

A Separate Peace
Separate Peace

For this title, the initial article is not a problem.  But having worked
with numerous public libraries, I was constantly asked how to search for
the title "A is for Apple".  Despite a SKIP value of "0" and a 245
second indicator of "0", when you enter the search string into the
INNOPAC, you generally get a "no-hit" reply showing the index entry at
"is for apple".  So for these examples, the function does not have the
desired intent of getting the patron from the request in their head to
the cataloging record in the system.

So with all cases, it becomes a matter of the percentages.  While it is
very easy to come up with the books that fail to be found with the
removal of the initial articles, I have found that it is generally less
than 1% of the collection (though to all credit, I have not worked with
foreign language collections).  I think that the benefit of the OPAC
option is that it helps direct the user who enters the initial article
find the title that they are looking for.  As with many things, it
becomes a compromise that a library needs to look at.

Insofar as setting up authority records, this is VERY possible, but a
bit gnarly (yes, I wanted to use that word).  I did this at a few sites
who asked about the very dynamic of searching for books such as "A is
for Apple."  

The basic premise is that you want to direct someone from the index
entry without the initial article-like work/letter to the full title.

For example, I set up something like this:

main entry -- A is for Apple
Cross Reference -- is for Apple  

(I am not going to try to get the MARC tags correctly put into this...!)

This way if you search for "is for apple", you get directed to the book
"A is for Apple"

I am pretty sure this worked out, and involved putting in a title
authority record for each one of these titles that you want to redirect.
The gnarly aspect is that when you enter "a is for apple", you get a
window saying "is for apple" is not a valid term, would you like to
search for "A is for apple".  You click on the link and you get to the
record.  The problem is that the person is sitting there thinking...that
is what I typed!  But if they do not mind, they get to the record.

And I suppose that if you wanted to ponder the value of the OPAC option,
you could choose if you would rather create title authority records for
all the titles with initial articles, or just the ones where the INNOPAC
chops off the first word.  

Maybe it is the company line, but I always like this feature as a
customer.

Best -- Corey

Corey Seeman
University of Toledo
corey.seeman@xxxxxxxxxx




-----Original Message-----
From: Naomi Zahavi
To: INNOPAC
Sent: 6/11/2002 4:37 PM
Subject: skipping initial articles

Dear Innopac'ers,

What are you doing to facilitate searching of titles that begin with 
foreign articles?

Our system is set to skip the English articles "a," "an," and '"the," so

that these are discarded from search strings and matching is done on the

first indexed word of a title field.

I note that under OPAC options we can add other articles to the list of 
those that are skipped, so that we could also discard "le," "la," and 
"les," for example.

Are any of you doing that?  What is the list of articles that you have 
chosen to skip?  Any negative consequences?

We used to add 740 fields to index foreign language articles that were 
skipped in the 245, but we consider this to be too labor-intensive.
Many 
of our 740s were removed in a retrospective authority project, so we're 
considering new options.

Another suggestion that was made here was to somehow redirect searches
for 
major titles beginning with articles, like "El Cid," through creative
use 
of authority records.  Anyone tried that?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience.

Naomi

Naomi Zahavi
Head Cataloging Librarian
Loyola Marymount University Library     phone: (310)338-7685
One LMU Drive                   fax: (310)338-4366
Los Angeles, CA 90045-2659              email: nzahavi@xxxxxxxxxx


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