Our accrediting body is taking a critical look at Populi's library software. One of the weaknesses they see is that search results cannot be grouped or sorted by date or by relevance.
So this is kind of a two-part request:
Being able to sort a list in other ways would also be helpful -- barcode, call number, date added, etc.
There do need to be a few changes. Eston College's library was recently audited and these this is the portion of the report pertaining to searches....
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It seems to be unable to perform Boolean searches. Regardless of terms entered it does an “OR”
search (All major search engines use a default “AND” search). This is particularly unhelpful as you
should be able to retrieve more specific search results by adding additional search terms and using
a Boolean “AND” either as an option or a default. By having a default “OR” search, additional terms
actually make the search less specific. A good default mode for the “search resources” tab would be to
look for all terms entered in any field. Right now to get the desired effect you need to go to the browse
feature and add multiple conditions, which is a rather cumbersome and non-intuitive way to do this. The
good thing about the filter feature is it does allow you to combine different kinds of filters (e.g. title and
subject).>
Any thoughts?
I agree 100% with Damien. The default user-friendly search is great for casual users but there needs to be more advanced search functionality. This is not just a user preference but a requirement for many accrediting bodies who are taking a critical look at all academic technology including library software.
@Damien - Your auditor's description of how Populi's library search works is not correct (see attached screens for a demonstration). If you or your auditor have any examples of unsatisfactory search results please forward them to us via a support request so we can investigate.
@Adam - It is the ability to independently search through multiple and specific queries. this might be "lewis AND tolkien" which would be a different search than "lewis OR tolkien". See screen shots. This is boolean logic and it an important part of library databases.
@Damien - You quoted your auditor's report as saying "Regardless of terms entered [Populi LIbrary search] does an “OR” search". This is not true. Much of the remainder of your auditor's criticism of search is based on this falsehood.
Library search not including OR and NOT operators isn't really within the scope of this feature request. If you'd like to request that OR and NOT operator's be added please do so in a separate feature request so we can gauge how important they are to our customers.
If you have any examples of unsatisfactory search results, that is: not being able to find something you are searching for, please let us know via a support request so we can investigate.
@ Adam - See "Addition of Boolean search criteria to Library" for more information in regards to previous discussion.
Damien,
Thanks for divvying that request out from this thread. Sometimes a Feature Request discussion, while helpful overall, diverts from the original request and we don't have a straightforward way to evaluate them (or mark them as Planned or Done).