Simple Search

Enterprise, the Montana Shared Catalog’s current online public access catalog (OPAC), offers intuitive searching that accommodates a variety of skill levels. In most cases, library patrons will elect to use a simple search with no further refining.

Search Bar

The most basic search requires nothing more than typing a keyword in the search bar and clicking search.

All terms are considered when searching in Enterprise, including those typically used as Boolean operators. This allows users to successfully search for titles like Bud, Not Buddy . Currently, Enterprise (version 5.0) does not support Boolean searching.

Search Suggestions and Did You Mean

Upon typing in the search bar, users are automatically presented with search suggestions, where available. Enterprise will create profile-specific search suggestions when a term has been searched on successfully at least three times in the last 10 days.

Some commonly misspelled search terms will also present a “Did You Mean” helper after clicking search. For example, a search for rordan returns a suggestion for the author, Riordan.

Search Result Views

When multiple records are returned, the search results will display in a list. There are two possible views for search results, list and thumbnail.

The list view is the default. Note the two icons outlined in red below.

Use the icon on the right to toggle from list view to the thumbnail view as shown below.

Switching to thumbnail view allows the user to quickly browse by cover image. The sacrifice is that each entry displays less bibliographic detail.

Whether in list or thumbnail view, you can click the book cover or title to open a detail display. The detail display will include additional information about the item, including holdings, summaries, and reviews, where available.

Sorting

Beyond toggling the view, users can adjust the sort options in the search results window. By default, titles are organized first using a relevance score. Where relevance is equal, Enterprise will next sort by descending publication date. In other words, the most relevant result with the most recent publication date will rise to the top of your search results.

Enterprise will consider a hit most relevant if your search terms are found in the title. Author is ranked next, followed by subject. More points are assigned to a hit if the search term appears in a combination of the fields.

It is sometimes useful to reorganize the view chronologically by publication date or alphabetically by author or title. One scenario where this might be useful is if you are trying to identify the most recently published title in a series.

Narrowing a Simple Search

A simple search can be refined using drop-down options for search fields and search limits before the search or by applying facets after the search. Search fields and search limits are drop-downs located to the left of the search box while facets are on the search results page.

Search Fields

Unless a search field is selected, each search will match terms against all indexed content in Enterprise which includes many data fields from the MARC record, ranging from titles to summaries. Because a simple search can yield thousands of results, it can be helpful to narrow your results list by selecting a specific search field.

For example, a simple search for  jordan might return results that match on the author Belfort, Jordan, a summary that includes the phrase Michael Jordan, and a Geographic place of Jordan,(Mont.). If you only want books with the title Jordan , it will help to select the search field “Title”.

Before initiating your search, you can select the search field using the drop down to the immediate left of the search bar.

Search Limits

Users interested in looking at a specific collection can select the library or sharing group from the search limit drop-down. For most Enterprise instances, users can also select to search “Everything” which will include all items in the Montana Shared Catalog.

Facets

After conducting a simple search, you might desire to eliminate irrelevant hits. Facets along the left side of the screen will allow you to narrow the results.

To filter search results, check the box next to the facet navigator you wish to include or exclude. Click the “Include” or “Exclude” button as appropriate. Repeat with as many facets as necessary. For example, if you’re searching for jungle book and specifically want the Disney movie, you might “Include” the formats DVD and Blu-ray and “Include” the author Walt Disney Pictures. 

While facets are stackable, you must apply navigators from one facet at a time. In other words, “Include” or “Exclude” navigators from one category (e.g. item format) before selecting navigators from another category (e.g. author).

The publication date facet can be entered as a range either using a slider or by typing in the dates.

The selections with the most results will appear in the facet menu, but you can select More or View All to see more options. The View All window can be sorted alphabetically. Select all relevant options and click “Include” or “Exclude”.

Fuzzy and Exact Searching

Enterprise uses a Google-like keyword search based on an algorithm called the “Levenshtein Distance” or the fuzzy search factor. This factor specifies the amount of fuzziness applied to searching and is set at the administrator level for each Enterprise profile.

Fuzziness is the "closeness" requirement between two words – the search term and a term in the index. In other words, the fuzzy search factor is the percentage of characters that must remain unchanged for an item to be included in the search results. This allows users to find results even with minor spelling errors. For example, libraries with the default fuzzy search factor of .7 can return results for tattoo and taboo even when the patron types tatoo .

Fuzzy searching is automatically applied to searches on author, title, and subject fields. Other indexed fields such as the ISBN require an exact match to appear in the results list.

Sometimes it is desirable to search for an exact search term. To avoid results for taboo and tattoo, you can place tatoo in quotation marks. As in the example below, searches that do not return this exact result will not be included, even if this means there are no results to review.

Advanced Search

More precise searches can also be constructed using Advanced Search. To select Advanced Search, look to the right of the search box.

The Advanced Search options are as follows.

Advanced search will allow you to search for an exact phrase. At the same time, you can exclude unwanted terms and choose a specific format type, language, and library.

You can also search specific fields by typing your keyword in the Title, Author, or Subject boxes.

Finally, you can search everything or select a search limit.

As you can see from the available options, Advanced Search allows you to apply the many different options available in search fields, search limits, and facets at the onset of your search. After clicking Advanced Search and viewing your search results, you can further narrow your results by applying more facets.

New Item Browsing

In addition to searches, Enterprise allows users to browse items using the home page book river. This cover rotation features items recently added at a library.

“Find in my Library” initiates an everything search which will include all MSC items matching on an advanced title and author search, including DVDs, books, audio and other cataloged formats.

Permanent Links to a Collection Search

A permanent link is an easy way to connect users to a specific search result. Narrow down the search results either by search field and/or library facet then simply copy the url and paste it wherever you are advertising (i.e. newsletter, email, website, etc.). The link should update as you add or remove items from your collection.