[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] 2.5.2 Subject Browse Index

[Elizabeth Thomsen]

And also in this discussion is the way subject headings work in the bib
record display.  When we first came up on Evergreen, our users found this
somewhat confusing, too.  In our former system, if you clicked on a
subject heading in a bib record, you were doing a browse search on that
complete heading.  With a little time, though, people adjusted, and it
made a big difference when we changed our separator from -- to >. People
seemed to immediately see these as breadcrumbs in a hierarchy.

What I really like about the way this works is the flexibility to decide
just how far you want to follow that subject heading.  Sometimes these are
very specific, much more specific than the users interest.

Here's an example:
Editors > Massachusetts > Fitchburg > Biography

We have only one title that matches this specific heading, but the person
who is interested in this book may be interested in Editors >
Massachusetts or perhaps just Editors.

-- 
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
26 Cherry Hill Drive
Danvers Massachusetts 01923
E-mail: et at noblenet.org




On Fri, June 20, 2014 10:08 am, Elizabeth B. Thomsen wrote:
> I think that Don is talking about something different -- a way to
> keyword search subject headings.
>
> Right now we have two subject search options:
>
> On the Basic and Advanced search screen, choosing subject and entering
> search terms gets you all the records that have that term in subject
> headings.  "Show me all the bib records that have the word Puffins
> somewhere in the subject headings."
>
> On the Browse search, you choose subject and enter search terms, and you
> are shown the alphabetical section of the index that starts with
> whatever you entered. You get to a list of subject headings and their
> subdivisions (at least if you've done your indexes as described earlier
> in this thread, and they have the subdivisions like Bibliomations.
>
> Keyword searching of subject headings would be saying "Show me all the
> subject headings that include these search terms."  If you entered
> "Washington," for example, you'd get something like this:
>
> George Washington Bridge (New York, N.Y.)  (3)
> Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915 (30)
> Washington, George 1732-1783 (100)
>
> That would be a great feature, something like "Find Headings," but I
> wouldn't want to see it replace either the way subject searching on
> basic advanced or subject browse works now.
>
>
> On 6/20/2014 9:45 AM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
>> On 6/20/2014 9:20 AM, Donald Butterworth wrote:
>>> I agree with Janet, that the whole subject phrase needs to be kept
>>> together so that only the limited set displays when clicking on the
>>> phrase. There are lots of DLC authority records that include a main
>>> subject and subdivisions.
>>
>> I'm confused now. Are we still talking about the subject browse index or
>> are we talking about the bib record? If we're talking about the subject
>> browse index, I would agree, primarily because the user is presumably
>> seeing a hierarchy of subjects where the broader term may be directly
>> above the term they are looking at and the narrower term is directly
>> below. The current behavior is that the link keeps the subject phrase
>> together when you click on it, so no changes would be required here.
>>
>> If we're talking about the bib record, I have to say I put a lot of
>> faith into what I'm sure is highly-funded usability testing done by
>> Amazon. As Dan mentioned, the current link behavior for subject headings
>> is similar to what Amazon is using. If the Evergreen community were to
>> do a coordinated batch of usability testing (probably not a bad idea)
>> and found that end users were indeed confused by the behavior, I might
>> think differently, but I personally like the ability to click higher in
>> the subject heading to broaden my search.
>>
>> Kathy
>
>
> --
> Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
> NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
> 26 Cherry Hill Drive
> Danvers MA 01923
> E-mail: et at noblenet.org
>