RE: [IUG] RightResults problem?

["Zhou, Don" <don dot zhou at wmitchell dot edu>]

Sue,

I think you just found another bug in the javascript, a disturbing one
as you phrased it.  Why?

I can understand why the script does not convert the
"soviet%20or%20USSR" in the search string to be "soviet+or+ussr." I say
in the "search string" because if it does, then we will encounter the
old problem of people complaining that we have no way to search for
something that has "or" not as a boolean, but a real word.  The same
goes for "and."

The disturbing part is: the script does not segment the "russia or
soviet or ussr" and the other search string in another box, because that
is what it is supposed to do, unless you have set the opac option to
perform "or" search. 

And the most disturbing part of it is: unless you grab the javascript to
use in the advance search or in any other search, the script itself is
provided either by <!--{advancedsearchbody}--> or
<!--{advancedsearch}--> [not sure which one, but immaterial]. It seems
that Innovative should be able to modify the script to add "(...)" to
the searchstring in each search text box and solve the problem for
everybody else. [Maybe a call to Innovative? Isn't that the whole
purpose of using tokens?]

In the modify search, the system simply converts the "or"s and "and"s as
boolean. I am not sure if that is really what we want.


We just completed user-testing of our redesign, and we discovered that
anything is possible with users: they can break the system the way you
never expected. 

Don Zhou
William Mitchell College of Law


-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Sue E Boggs
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 6:26 PM
To: Innopacusers group
Subject: [IUG] RightResults problem?

Hi,

 

We are contemplating going Pro so I've asked our staff to do searching
at various Pro libraries to test it out and tell our redesign team if
they have any major qualms with the idea. One cataloger found a
disturbing result and I wanted to run it by you folks. I've run the
search in catalogs at Western Washington University and Bowling Green
State University and found the same result so I'm assuming most other
Pro sites will be the same.

 

On the Advanced Keyword page input in the first search box Russia or
soviet or USSR leave the Boolean connector at AND and input in the
second search box woman or women. The results, while divided into highly
relevant, mostly relevant etc., appear to actually be a result of or'ing
all of the terms. For instance at both sites the first entry, which
should have either woman or women and one of the synonyms for Russia,
only has one term. In Western Washington's the word is Russia and at
Bowling Green the word is women.

 

It appears adding the or's is confusing it. The search that shows in the
address bar has the AND but it seems to ignore it.

 

http://lis.wwu.edu/search/X?SEARCH=russia%20%20or%20soviet%20or%20USSR%2
0+and+woman%20or%20women&SORT=D 

 

http://maurice.bgsu.edu/search/X?SEARCH=russia%20or%20soviet%20or%20USSR
+and+woman%20or%20women&SORT=D

 

At both sites if you just put Russia in the first search box and women
in the second the search proceeds as you would expect it. Does anyone
have an explanation for this? I don't know how many of our users would
actually search like this but it definitely seems to be something
Innovative needs to fix.

 

Sue

 

Sue Boggs
Cataloging & Library Technician
Technical Services
Library
University of Puget Sound
1500 N. Warner St. #1021
Tacoma, WA 98416-1021

(253) 879-2667
boggs at ups dot edu

 

 

 



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