[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Development to support traditional Boolean operators

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

We've contracted with Catalyst IT Services to create an interface to 
support traditional Boolean operators in tpac. I wanted to share some of 
our plans on the list so that we can get feedback from the community 
before proceeding.

This functionality was important to many of our libraries because, even 
though the advanced search interface provides a graphical way to do 
Boolean searches, there is no way to control the nesting of searches, 
making it difficult to perform more complex searches.

For example, if a user were to enter the search terms in Advanced Search 
as drugs AND teenagers OR adolescents, the resulting query would be 
((drugs && keyword:teenagers) || keyword:adolescents), when the intended 
query is drugs && (teenagers || adolescents). Performing a search with 
more complex nesting, something like "((mouse or rat) and trap) or 
mousetrap", requires free-form entry to get the nesting right. However, 
users are expected to know that && means "and" and that || means "or." 
Our academics, in particular, were concerned, because they often start 
their instruction in Boolean searching with the library catalog before 
moving on to full-text databases.

Attached is a mock-up of the interface we would like to include. It 
would add a new Boolean search tab to the advanced search interface. 
When searching from this interface, if any Boolean operators are present 
based on the locale settings, the system will replace them accordingly 
with the correct syntax (&& || -) to perform the search. As part of the 
work, Catalyst will also leverage the Evergreen locale settings so that 
operators can be entered in other languages. After performing the 
search, clicking the "Refine Search" link will return the user to the 
Boolean search tab with their originally-entered search terms 
auto-populating the boxes. There will be a configuration setting to 
disable/enable this feature.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this project!

Kathy

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier

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