[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Searchable Copy Notes

Fri May 20 07:43:35 EDT 2016

I agree with everything you say. I was proposing having the Copy Notes search interface in the staff client only. It would be separate from Search Catalog. If we do make it available to the public and integrate it with the Search Catalog interface, how would we present it so that patrons understand what it is and what it does? I can see why it would important for patrons to be able to search copy notes themselves, but it is a hard concept to get across.

Scott

From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Elaine Hardy
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2016 4:44 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Searchable Copy Notes

Clarifies; but, I'm still not convinced it would be a viable solution. Especially for a library with 1000s of donations from 100s if not 1000s of donors. Or for those where one donor, such as a local business, might donate money for hundreds of items every year.

The inefficiency and insular nature of copy notes comes up ever so often. Consortia like the way public notes display in the catalog so they are tied to the specific copy rather than a record; but, we don't like most else associated with them, including the lack of searchability by patrons and staff. We also don't like that there aren't copy note templates for recurring notes, no ability to add the same note to multiple copies at one time (especially at the time attributes are being edited at copy creation rather than singly after creation) and the clunky nature of having to dig down to see nonpublic notes.  While I would prefer to see those issues solved first, I understand that it is probably easier to get support for development for some kind of search functionality for patrons.

J. Elaine Hardy
PINES & Collaborative Projects Manager
Georgia Public Library Service/PINES
1800 Century Place, Ste. 150
Atlanta, GA 30045
404.235.7128 Office
404.548.4241 Cell
404.235.7201 FAX

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 3:54 PM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com<mailto:mrylander at gmail.com>> wrote:
Elaine,

Sorry, I should have mentioned that all of what I said still requires development, and adding display of specific types of buckets would be a trivial component of that work.

The fact that public copy notes can display in the OPAC today doesn't really mean that making their content searchable would be simpler that what I've suggested.  In terms of effort and cost (both direct development and maintenance of the code, and I believe for cataloger efficiency benefits), folding copy notes into search is much more costly than displaying specific copy buckets that a copy belongs to.

Does that help clarify?

--
Mike Rylander
 | President
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com<mailto:miker at esilibrary.com>
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 2:37 PM, Elaine Hardy <ehardy at georgialibraries.org<mailto:ehardy at georgialibraries.org>> wrote:
The main problem I see with the copy bucket approach is that it removes the direct acknowledgement of the gift  a public copy note gives by being displayed in the OPAC, which is desired by many donors.  They want everyone to see that they donated the book both in the book itself and in the OPAC, as well as being able to search the catalog for their donations. Removing that direct link and using just a copy bucket would mean that the item retrieved by itself would not indicate the gift in the OPAC.

Like PaILS, PINES also does not allow information of a local nature to be input into the bibliographic record, so copy notes are used to indicate gifts. There are many changes we would like to see to notes, the ability for patrons and staff to search them is one. Our libraries do often get donors wanting to see the books they donated in the catalog as well as the physical item on the shelf.

Elaine

J. Elaine Hardy
PINES & Collaborative Projects Manager
Georgia Public Library Service/PINES
1800 Century Place, Ste. 150
Atlanta, GA 30045
404.235.7128<tel:404.235.7128> Office
404.548.4241<tel:404.548.4241> Cell
404.235.7201<tel:404.235.7201> FAX

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com<mailto:mrylander at gmail.com>> wrote:
Scott,

Since your main use case is about applying the same message to many specific copies, like a "digital book plate", it might be interesting to consider using copy buckets with a new type of, say, "donation", instead.  Each bucket of that type would get its own name and description fields, analogous to the title and value fields on copy notes.  Here are some benefits I see:

 * By only having the one bucket for a given donation, regardless of the number of items, we avoid human error on the note entry.
 * Also, searching the name and description strings becomes very "cheap" compared to copy note title/value, since there is only the one bucket rather than a note per item.
 * We already have specialized bucket-related interfaces already, which allow seeing the item set as a whole and manipulating them together.
 * A URL can already be created that points any user, via the OPAC, at the set of records with items in the container, and (as a bonus) searches can be performed /within/ that set.
 * Because we have container-specific logic in the search code already, it's a (much, much, much) simpler path to add "searching" on name or description of these donation buckets, rather than copy notes.

Thoughts?

--
Mike Rylander
 | President
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com<mailto:miker at esilibrary.com>
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 1:14 PM, scott.thomas at sparkpa.org<mailto:scott.thomas at sparkpa.org> <scott.thomas at sparkpa.org<mailto:scott.thomas at sparkpa.org>> wrote:
Hi,
  We are trying to gauge community support for creating, in the staff client, a keyword search interface for Copy Notes. We are a statewide consortium. Since bib records are shared, we do not allow our members to use Local Notes tags like 590 for very localized information like “In memory of Jim Jones” or “Donated by Harry Haynes.” The problem is that descendants of Mr. Jones and Mr. Haynes himself might come in and demand to know what items come up, and we have no way of doing that (other than reports which cannot easily be run by front-line staff). Would anyone else like to see a search interface for Copy Notes? Also, what kind of information do other libraries and consortia place in Copy Notes?

Thank you,
Scott

Scott Thomas
Executive Director
PaILS / SPARK
(717) 873-9461<tel:%28717%29%20873-9461>
scott.thomas at sparkpa.org<mailto:scott.thomas at sparkpa.org>
[Description: Description: Training | SPARK – Pennsylvania's Statewide Library System]<http://www.palibrary.org/pails/>

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