[Koha-bugs] [Bug 14567] Browse interface for OPAC

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.koha-community.org]

http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=14567

--- Comment #12 from Robin Sheat <robin at catalyst.net.nz> ---
(In reply to Heather from comment #9)
> One of the main purposes of a complete alphabetical browse for the library
> user is exactly what you mentioned: when the user is unsure of the spelling,
> but has most of it, e.g., "Stephens" or "Stevens," or something like
> "Ralphs," or "Rolphs."  

Right, and that is handled here by allowing fuzzier searching. Having
everything there doesn't seem like it'd make that particularly easy, as things
might be separated quite widely visually even if there's only a one character
difference.

Y'know what'd be interesting, incorporating "sounds like" searching to it. I'll
leave that for another time though. I also shudder to think how that'd be
internationalised :)

> The alphabetic browse is also invaluable for the catalogers on the staff
> side doing authority control--it's the easiest way to spot heading
> variations.

Certainly, but I'm consciously not focussing on that side of things, or stuff
will get too big too fast :)

> (BTW, the Authority Search in the demo catalog has a problem--do an
> authority search with default options & the term "Birds" & you get:
> Software error:
> Can't call method "each" on unblessed reference at
> /opt/kohaclones/browse/Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/Search.pm line 265.
> For help, please send mail to the webmaster ([no address given]), giving
> this error message and the time and date of the error.")

That doesn't surprise me just because this code is new and largely unstressed,
though I'll look into it, it shouldn't be happening. 

> Do a similar authority search in our catalog for ships:
> http://keys.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-authorities-home.
> pl?op=do_search&type=opac&operator=contains&value=ships&marclist=any&and_or=a
> nd&orderby=HeadingAsc
> 
> And you get close to a subject heading browse result--the only problem is
> that it returns only main headings, not an alphabetic list of the terms
> *with subdivisions* as used in the records, which would be very useful to
> the user.  I bring this up because, IMO, as it is, authority
> control/authority search is not an alternative to a true alphabetical
> catalog browse for the public opac user, of subject terms with subdivisions
> as used in the catalog.

Just FYI, this isn't using the authority database, it's using the actual search
indices.

I may swap out the database some time soon with one that has a more "properly"
catalogued catalogue, to see how that looks.

(In reply to Katrin Fischer from comment #10)
> I was thinking this morning, maybe a 'starts with' search option could help
> to bring the result list a little closer to an alphabetic index. Could this
> be an option?

This is exactly what is there right now, or I misunderstand you :)

> Example: Exact, Author: Miller
> The first result shown is "Millard, Annie". 
> I didn't expect that for the exact search option, but only with fuzzy
> activated.

Hmm. That must be a bug. That shouldn't be happening.

> Another issue could be related to ISBD punctuation in the fields. Often
> there are 2 entries which what seems to be the same author, only different
> by a . at the end:
> 
> Example: Exact, Author: Smith
> Smith, Alexander Gordon.
> Smith, Alexander Gordon
> Smith, Jim
> Smith, Jim.
> 
> Would be good if those could be merged for display and search.

I've been thinking about this. It's a bit problematic, due to way the MARC->ES
conversion works. However, I want to figure out how to tap into this for some
other things too, if I can attach bits of Perl to certain points in the
conversion, it might be doable.

We're still going to get other weird results though, e.g.

Rowling, J. K.
Rowling, J.K.

fixing that in a way that doesn't cause false positives, or make the results
inaccurate, may be hard.

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