To Browse or To Keyword? … that’s the question! Colorado Horizon Users Group April 21, 2006 Presented by Donna Spearman Cataloger 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 1 st 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 about the 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” Subdivisions for 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”