Re: Proximity operators "before" and "after"

[Mieko Yamaguchi <iss053@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, Pamela A. Mofjeld wrote:

> The only thought that had occurred to me was that perhaps if their ASSEARCH
> wwwoption was set to 4 or 5, and completely change all failed searches that
> then before and after would get truncated and work.  Pam Mofjeld

Worth a try :-).  So I did, using port 2080 (a very useful facility!)
We have a record for the title "Before dawn" so did an AVS search for
"before dawn".

With ASSEARCH set to 4 or 5 I got this:

Your search query has been changed...
Tried: (before dawn) no records found
Tried: (before and dawn) no records found
Tried: (before or dawn) no records found
Tried: be**

Some records were found at level 4 (Search on only the first word, discard
any field limits, and truncate to the first two characters).  But it seems
clear that the search term "before" is distorting the result and the title
"Before dawn" cannot be found (though it must be buried somewhere
starting with be**).

We also have a couple of records for the title "The day before yesterday".

An AVS search for "day before" finds meaningless results like the first
example (tries da**).

An AVS search for "day before yesterday" finds 8 records, but what's
WebOPAC actually did was a boolean search for "day and yesterday".
Since there is no warning that the search has been changed the user may
not realise that the result is not what was requested.

At least you get the same result whether you set your ASSEARCH option
to 3, 4 or 5!

OhioLINK can do phrase searches for "before dawn" and "day before
yesterday" correctly.  I's love to find out why.

Mieko
-----
Mieko Yamaguchi                                m.yamaguchi@xxxxxxxxxx
Technical Services Manager/System Coordinator        +44 (0)1248 382970
Main Library, University of Wales Bangor, UK   +44 (0)1248 382979 (Fax)