[Koha-devel] (koha 3.0) OPAC search results list

[Bryan Baldus]

At 11:24 AM +0200 7/3/07, Paul POULAIN wrote:
>yesterday, kados & me spoke of the look the 
>result list could/should have for Koha 3.0
>Here are 2 proposals :
>http://catalog.ccfls.org/search?idx=&q=chaos
>http://catalogue.iptheologie.fr/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?q=chaos

I haven't been following this list closely, but 
happened upon this discussion and decided to look 
at the examples. My perspective is that of a 
cataloger (traditionalist), so my thoughts might 
be skewed by that. I apologize if the nature of 
my comments stray from what is expected. I viewed 
the pages using iCab 2.9.9 (on MacOS 9.2.2) with 
JavaScript turned off (and minimal CSS support). 
As a result of that, I believe the page layouts 
were a bit off--on CCFLS, the sidebar for 
refining the search appears at the bottom of the 
page, after all results. On IPT, the sidebar 
appears at the top followed by the refinement 
terms, then the results--requiring quite a bit of 
scrolling to get to the results. In both cases, I 
believe my browser is making it more difficult to 
determine which checkbox goes with which record, 
particularly in the CCFLS display. When in the 
middle of the results set, mostly for items with 
no cover image, the call number line appears 
close to the next title, and it isn't immediately 
clear whether the call number belongs with the 
title above or the title below. The IPT display 
is better in having the table format, but with 
the links for author and title, the records 
become mixed, as well--for example between "Un 
chant dans le chaos" and "Temps, mémoires, chaos."

On IPT:

1. While searching, I came upon #36489, Lettres a 
Madame Caroline Commanville. Under the 200, type 
de document, it has "HASH(0x906aa80)."

2. From the initial link, I clicked on 
"Charbonneau (2)" and then Topics->"Developpement 
econ... (2). This results in a message "Aucun 
resultat ne correspond a votre recherche 'chaos 
and au:Charbonneau and su-to:Developpement 
economique' dans le catalogue de Bibliotheque - 
Institut Protestant de Theologie (Paris)." Why 
does the link have (2) if clicking on it brings 
up no results?

3. I find it difficult to determine what the 
title link is vs. the link belonging to the 
statement of responsibility/author, mainly due to 
the lack of ISBD punctuation or anything else in 
the initial results list to clearly indicate 
whether the link is for the title or the author.

On CCFLS:

1. A recent thread of discussion on AUTOCAT dealt 
with the importance of displaying the transcribed 
statement of responsibility (245$c) vs. 
substituting "by"+ inverted form of name. An 
example of where meaning is lost is with record # 
mpl19219724 (ISBN 0765194902), Beautiful stories 
from Shakespeare for children / retold by 
E.Nesbit ; beautifully illustrated with color 
plates and fine pen drawings by Max Bihn ; edited 
and arranged by E.T. Roe. Without going to the 
MARC record view, how are the users to know the 
roles E. Nesbit and E.T. Roe played in working on 
this book?

2. Going along with CCFLS#1, I don't understand 
why ISBD-based display is now outdated and no 
longer valid in online catalogs. On record # 
bl2005009213 (ISBN 0764131427), William 
Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream, why is 
"2002 - Barron's Educational Series, ; Hauppauge, 
N.Y. : - vi, 58 p. : : Originally published: 
London : Hodder and Stoughton, 2002. ; 26 cm." 
more understanable than Hauppauge, N.Y. : 
Barron's Educational Series, 2002. -- vi, 58 p. ; 
26 cm. -- (Picture this! Shakespeare) -- 
Originally published: London : Hodder and 
Stoughton, 2002.?

3. On the Details (single-record default 
display?) page, it would be helpful if the 521 
generated some label before listing the data. For 
example, in the record cited in CCFLS#2, "7-9" 
appears in the Description section. What does 
this mean?  The MARC display doesn't help much, 
as the indicators seem to be missing. Even if the 
indicators are blank, a label like "Audience:" 
would be more informative than simply giving what 
appear to be random numbers.

4. On the MARC View page, clicking the ISBD 
button results in a page "Fill with appropriate 
value..."

5. After following the MARC View link, the text 
of the button for going to the default record 
display varies between "Normal View" and "Simple 
View" (on ISBD page).

6. On the MARC View:

a. As mentioned in CCFLS#3, the indicators appear 
to be missing. If this display is intended 
primarily for librarians, why not show the whole 
MARC record?

b. Why are there hyphens in the ISBN in the MARC 
display but not in the Normal display? Preferable 
would be to leave them out. I'm not sure how Koha 
searches, but in most systems, the hyphens have 
to be removed in order to be searched.

c. Having descriptions of what each field and 
subfield means might be helpful to some users, 
but for someone more familiar with the MARC 
record, a more useful display (at least for me) 
would be to have all subfields in a single row 
(or set of rows, if wrapping is necessary). On 
the other hand, since this display is for the 
public interface, I guess having the description 
of each subfield would be better for the general 
public users who might venture into the MARC 
display.

Thank you for your assistance,

Bryan Baldus
Cataloger
Quality Books Inc.
bryan.baldus at quality-books.com
eijabb at cpan.org
http://home.inwave.com/eija