Effect of Parentheses on Initial Articles when Searching OPAC

["Still, Erik R" <erik dot r dot still at boeing dot com>]

Hi, All.

In our Silver version, the JavaScript on the Advanced Search page
(srchhelp_X.html) places parentheses around the input typed by the user.
If the user happens to type a search phrase that starts with an initial
article (e.g., "a case study for"), the JavaScript then changes the
query to:
   (a case study for)  --  with 16 items retrieved

The combination of parentheses and initial article seems to have the
effect of forcing the inclusion of the initial article in the search for
this phrase.  Consequently, this search retrieves a subset of the items
that are retrieved if you perform any of the following (identical)
searches:
   a case study for  --  with 33 items retrieved
   case study for
   (case study for)

This is not an issue of using the M245 2nd indicator to indicate the
presence of an initial article in the  title.  In our collection, the
phrase "a case study" appears either in the middle of the title, or in
the description.

I see that other Millennium libraries don't have this problem (U of
Washington, U of Toledo), even though their Advanced Search also puts
parentheses around the search terms.

I would like to know the following:
Has anyone else noticed this behavior (that the combination of
parentheses and initial articles causes different search results)?
If so, did you engineer a work around?

I'm sorry that our catalog is behind our firewall, so that you can not
see it.

Sincerely,

		-- Erik Still, Boeing Library Services