To Browse or To Keyword? … that’s the question!

Colorado Horizon Users Group

April 21, 2006

Presented by

Donna SpearmanCataloger

Westminster Public Library

What’s Coming Up?

Browse and keyword indexes – what’s available and their makeup

Results of various browse and keyword searches How they differ from each other How they differ in StafPac and HIP (Horizon

Information Portal)

Strengths and weakness of the indexes Various search strategies

Title Starts With (aka Title Browse)

Title Starts With (Includes Format) (aka Title Browse Public)

Title/Series Title (aka Title/Uniform Title)

Title Keyword

Title Indexes

Title Starts With

Must know the title words in exact order! Works well in HIP for titles issued in various

formats, since the format can be displayed in a separate column

Less useful for this in StafPac, because the format can only be viewed by looking at each record individually

Does not include all title fields in the MARC record

Title Starts With (Includes Format)

Must know the title words in exact order! When searching for titles with materials in various

formats, this index works best in both HIP and StafPac for longer, more unique titles

Video and audio forms of shorter, less unique titles may be separated from book titles by many screens – so the user will need to add the format to the search

Title/Series Title

Must know the title words in exact order! Includes almost every possible kind of title The user doesn’t have to know the

differences between a series title and an individual volume title

Great for discovering foreign language translations of a known English language title

Title Keyword

Not necessary to know all title words in exact order!

Especially helpful when you don’t know the 1st word

Indexes more than just title fields – includes all fields indexed in Title/Series Title plus the Contents Note

Must use the spelling used by the author – contents notes use non-standard spellings if they were used by the author

Author Browse (HIP and StafPac)Author Keyword (StafPac)Author or Performer Keyword (HIP)

Author Indexes

What’s the difference?

Browse searches must begin with surname first Twain, Mark not Mark Twain

Keyword searches can be formulated with names in either order Twain, Mark or Mark Twain

Author Cross References,or, I may not really know the author’s name

“See” references (from an unused form of the name to the official form) are available in: Author Browse (HIP and StafPac) Author Keyword (StafPac)

“See also” references (between and among various acceptable author names and pseudonyms) are available in: Author Browse (HIP and StafPac)

Author Cross References,or, I may not really know the author’s name

Author cross references are not available at all in the HIP Author or Performer Keyword index

What’s special aboutthe Author Keyword indexes?

Author Keyword (StafPac) and Author or Performer Keyword (HIP) will search beyond standard author fields and include information in the fields labeled: Production credits Performers Contents (some, but not all)

Danger, Will Robinson … Danger!

Keyword author searches may give you way more than you actually wanted!

Some results may be misleading

Series Browse (HIP and StafPac)Series Keyword (HIP and StafPac)

Series Indexes--the choices are finally simple!

For series written or created by a single author, you can browse by author (surname first) or by series title

Cross-references are available – useful for foreign language titles and those series that just have a title identity crisis

Series Browse

Will include author names and titles in one search – so beware!

Work best with more unique words

Series Keyword

Search results display differently in HIP and StafPac: StafPac

Results in StafPac first display a list of possible series headings

Cross-references are displayed HIP

Results list display leads directly to the bibliographic records

Cross-references are not indexed

Series Keyword

Subject Browse (HIP and StafPac)Subject Keyword (HIP and StafPac)

Subject Indexes

Uses controlled vocabulary Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) Annotated Card headings (AC – for children) Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of

Fiction, Drama, Etc (genre headings) A limited number of locally devised headings

Search will produce a list of available headings Cross-references are available – these are especially

useful for those concepts where Library on Congress hasn’t chosen natural language, or there are simply several ways to express the same concept

Subject Browse

In StafPac only you can use “reposition” to do a new subject search using the cross-referenced term

In HIP you can sometimes simulate “reposition” with the help of the “Go” button

Subject Cross-References

Still uses controlled vocabulary, but allows searching the words out of order

Extremely limited access to subject cross-references and only in StafPac

Search results vary between StafPac and HIP

Subject Keyword

In StafPac, subject words must occur within the same subject heading string For example, a search for “cruise guidebooks”

Would find a record with the heading“Cruise ships – Guidebooks”

Would not find a record with the two headings:“Ocean travel – Guidebooks”“Cruise ships”

The search results will be a list of possible headings that fit your criteria

“See” cross-references are available, but not “See also”

StafPac Subject Keyword

Unlike StafPac: Subject words may occur in any subject heading

in the record Search results will be a list of bibliographic

records that fit your criteria Cross-reference information is not available or

indexed

HIP Subject Keyword

Use “Free-Floating” Subdivisionsfor Greater Precision

Standard subdivision headings combined with other keywords can increase the efficiency of a subject keyword search. Some examples are:

Case studies Biography Popular works History Chronology Periodicals

This strategy works most reliably in HIP, since the subdivisions and other keywords won’t necessarily have to occur in the same subject heading

HIP’s “Power Search” offers the capability to search more than one keyword index at the same time

Only keyword indexes are available in the “power” searching option

This type of search is not currently working in our version of StafPac (Horizon 7.3.3)

HIP Has the “Power”