[Koha-devel] Search UI

[Rosalie Blake]

On 5 Oct 2002, at 21:00, Andrew Arensburger wrote:
 
Therefore, you conclude, if you see
> 
>  Author:  _________________
>  Title:   _________________
>  Subject: _________________
>  [Search]
> 
> you can fill in "Asimov" as the author and "astronomy" as the subject,
> and get all the books written by Asimov on the subject of astronomy.
> This isn't what the page does: it ignores the author entirely, and
> displays a list of subjects that have the word "astronomy" in them.

True and it's an unwelcome surprise to some patrons

>  IMHO it'd be better to start by changing the page layout:
> 
>  Keywords: ________________
>  Author:   ________________
>  Title:    ________________ (*) Normal  ( ) Exact
>  Series:   ________________ (*) Normal  ( ) Exact
>  Illustrator: _____________
>  Subject:  ________________
>  Item type: [Choose an item type]
>      [Search]
> 
>   --------
> 
>  Subject:  ________________
>      [Search]
> 
>   --------
> 
>  Barcode:  ________________
>      [Search]
> 
> (And maybe drop the Dewey search. I don't know.)

The Dewey search is useful if you know the class number of the 
subject you want (eg from a book you've already read) and want to 
know what else is available in that area. It's a useful partner to a 
subject search, which can do the same thing - but the Dewey 
search takes you straight to the books, while the subject search, as 
you observed, is a two-stage process,  taking you first to a list of 
subject headings. 

>  For the first search, all of the terms would be combined: the
> search would return all books that match all of the criteria. The
> second search would return a list of subjects, the way it's currently
> done. The third search would find a specific book, as you'd expect.
> This layout seems more intuitive to me.

 I agree. Good explanation.

Cheers
Rosalie Blake
Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust