RE: Changes to Advanced Searching with release 2002, phase 3

["Gowing, Cheryl A." <cgowing@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi:

We've been a beta site for Phase 3.  You are correct, you need to enclose phrases in quotes for adjacency searching.    We are using the settings you describe:  default 'and', adjacency 'no'.  

Couple of other things to be aware of with AVS:

1.   There is also an OPAC system option for "AVS performs or".  If set to yes and there are no hits resulting from a boolean 'and' search of multiple terms, then the system will automatically switch to a Boolean 'or' and change the default AVS sort [set up in your wwwoptions] to relevancy ranking.   If you carefully read the results screen, in the upper left corner you'll see a system message along the lines of :  

Tried:  (term1 and term2)  no records found
Tried:  (term1 or term2)    36,837 records founds

The intent is to always provide the user with search results, although you may be very large results sets.   The relevancy ranking should force the first couple of hits to be the most relevant and may be satisfactory to the patron.   This really only works well  if you have at least 3 terms, since a hit on 2 out of the 3 terms may be in the ballpark of what the patron is looking for.

We frankly hadn't paid attention to this setting until a patron complained that the keyword didn't work if you had more than 2 terms.  It turned out that his first two terms, combined with an 'and', did find results, but the third term he added happened to produce no hits and the search was changed into an 'or'.   Our Public Services librarians decided to turn this setting off, believing that it would be difficult to educate patrons to this new behavior and that many would not notice that their Boolean operator had been changed to an 'or'.  Indeed, the system message indicating the change of Boolean operator disappears once you move off the initial results screen, either by looking at a full record or advancing to another page.  

If you have this setting turned off and a Boolean 'and' search results in no hits, the patron is returned to the AVS srchhelp screen with a "No Entries Found" message prominently displayed.    Make sure you have both the srchhelp_X and srchhelp_Y pages prepared.  We found that 'no results' from our main/opacmenu quick search input returned to the srchhelp_Y page, as does the drop-down keyword search from any search result page.  Our 'quick search' feature was referencing the "Y" search, so this was understandable, but apparently the internal keyword drop-down also uses the "Y" logic.    We ended up having our srchhelp_Y page mirror the 'X'  so patrons wouldn't see a different page, and it seems to be working OK, including the limits.

2.   The electronic books material type limit will not work in AVS if you use the 'standard' III code of ebook= @ .  This has apparently been a known issue since Dec. 02.   The AVS documentation explains that the '@'  is one of the special characters ignored by the system in AVS searches [#101243].  What's not so obvious is that it also ignores the '@" as a material type limit.   It is necessary to change your ebook mat type codes from the "@" to some other character and rapid update your records.   You'll also have to contact the Help Desk to adjust the mat type limit table.

3.  The Boolean operators 'and', 'or', and 'and not' are not supposed to be case-sensitive.  However, we found on our system that the system would ignore the  ''AND" operator if input in caps, and convert it to an 'or'.   This may have been fixed on the very latest version of the Phase 3 software currently available for download.   We aren't scheduled to get the final release until next week, so I can't check this out.

4.  Phase 3 provides two versions of the "Advanced" keyword srchhelp page, one with javascript, one without.  The 'nojava_script'  version has a single search input box, with the limit options.  The java version of the srchhelp_X.html   provides drop-down menus for the Boolean operators, as well as the search segments [title, author, subject, note].    There seems to be browser compatibility issues with the java AVS page.  The search doesn't run at all on Netscape 4.7.  I've had no problems with Netscape 7.1, but haven't tried the versions in between.  IE seems to be OK.   If you've loaded Phase 3 and want to test this out, you can call up your mainmenu on the staging directory [bring up your webpac and add the staging directory port].  The Advanced Search button in the search input area will bring up the java srchhelp_X page

5.  What happens to "w"  -  this goes away entirely.  You'll need to adjust any references to keyword 'w' in your wwwoptions and any static srch_help pages, as well as main and opacmenu.  III will take care of adjusting your telnet menus.   There are a number of new settings controlling the AVS search behavior.  Some of them are found in system options/opac, others in the wwwoptions.    

6.  FYI - the new  Phase 3 manual has an extensive section on the new web options/features.  The web server options section of the manual is now found in WebOpac/Web OPAC Editing References/Web Server Options.  


Hope this prevents some of you from spinning your wheels...

Cheryl A. Gowing
ILS System Coordinator
Richter Library
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL 33124
 
Ph: (305) 284-6018
Fax: (305) 284-4027
cgowing@xxxxxxxxxx
 

-----Original Message-----
From: jean-marc.edwards@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jean-marc.edwards@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:08 AM
To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Changes to Advanced Searching with release 2002, phase 3

Does anyone know this:

If the adjacency is set to "no" for AVS (from the search/X page) and 
defaults to "and", how can users do a phrase search if they wish to?

We want to have "and" as a default keyword search. It is now possible in 
phase 3. But what if a user wants to search a phrase as an option?  Does 
using the quotation marks work?

Any phase 3 site can let us know?

Jean-Marc

Seeman, Corey Glenn wrote:

>Jon -- 
>
>We have that option set at the University of Toledo.  Feel free to check out our catalog:
>
>http://utmost.cl.utoledo.edu/search/X
>
>Now that the release is out, I think that many libraries will move in this direction.  There are some automatic changes with the Webpac that some users have alluded to.  The biggest change is the navigation in the system for large record sets.  You will no longer have the buttons that say next page and previous page.  Instead, you will have a mechanism similar to Google that lets you choose the page that you want:
>
>Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
>
>Additionally, if you have no direct hits, the line that tells you that was buried in the middle of the browse display.  This is now additionally brought up to the top of the screen.  You can also save all records to export on a page (which is very nice).  There are lots of other changes, but those are the big ones that I wanted to let our people know about.
>
>If you want to see what this looks like on a living system (knock wood), follow these links:
>
>http://utmost.cl.utoledo.edu/search/t?toledo  (LOTS of records)
>
>http://utmost.cl.utoledo.edu/search/t?monkey+brains (No direct hits)
>
>We have had a great experience as a beta tester and had only minor problems that were fixed right away.  Since many sites use software differently, other libraries may run into more problems than we did.  But I am very happy with the process and like the new Millennium features and plugin.
>
>Best -- Corey
>
>P.S.  I was going to expand my communication presentation that I gave at IUG and at IUG at ALA to include more practical tools for showing new software to staff.  This is especially valuable during upgrading from one release to another.  I hopefully will have some resources available soon now that the last of my nagging summer projects is done.  When it is done, I will send a self-indulgent message out to the list.
>
>
>Corey Seeman
>Assistant Dean for Resource & Systems Management
>Assistant Professor, University Libraries
>Carlson Library
>Mailstop #509 
>University of Toledo
>2801 W. Bancroft
>Toledo, OH 43606
>
>---------------
>corey.seeman@xxxxxxxxxx 
>419.530.2333 (phone)
>419.530-2403 (fax)
>http://library.utoledo.edu
>http://library.utoledo.edu/userhomes/cseeman/
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jon Jiras [mailto:jjjwml@xxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 1:33 PM
>To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Changes to Advanced Searching with release 2002, phase 3
>
>
>Hello Innopacers:
>
>If you are one of the 50 beta libraries of release 2002, phase 3 and you
>have set the new "AVS performs adjacency search" option to 'yes', can
>you please send me the URL to your catalog?  
>
>Apparently there are significant changes to the AND/OR logic of Advanced
>Keyword Searching.
>
>I want to be able to figure out how loosing the ASSEARCH wwwoption will
>effect us before making the switch to release 2002, phase 3.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jonathan Jiras
>Wallace Library
>Rochester Institute of Technology
>Rochester, NY 14623
>585-475-7737 phone
>
>
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>--
>This message was distributed through the Innovative Users Group INNOPAC list
>Public replies:  INNOPAC@xxxxxxxxxx
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>
>
>  
>


-- 
Jean-Marc Edwards
Assistant-Director, Systems / Directeur-adjoint, Systèmes
Concordia University Libraries, Montréal, (Qc), Canada
tel: (514) 848-2424 ext.7732 
fax: (514) 848-4244
jean-marc.edwards@xxxxxxxxxx



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