[Koha] Improving Search Results

[Arslan Farooq]

Hi Joel,

Libraries all over the world (
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_Users_Worldwide) would not be
using Koha if its search does not work :) So my guess is there is something
wrong with your set-up. Search works very well out of the box -- if Koha is
installed properly.

The information you provided is OK but it is missing a key ingredient: your
set-up. There may be a hundred ways to install Koha, and one recommended
way.

We don't know what distribution you used. We don't know what method was
used to set-up Koha. We don't know what version of Koha you are using. We
don't know if you recently upgraded or something like that. We don't know
if search was working before and not working now, or is it that ever since
you set-up Koha you are using it for cataloging only and not circulation.

All we know is the search does not work. Cause of it could be a number of
reasons.

Arslan



On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 2:32 AM, Coehoorn, Joel <jcoehoorn at york.edu> wrote:

> I support a relatively new Koha installation, and the search quality we've
> experienced has been exceptionally poor. What can I do to improve search
> quality?
>
> Here's an example I received today from a librarian:
>
> ---------------------------------------
> On 4/21/14 I cataloged *The Word of Promise from Jesus: Dramatic Passages
> from the Gospels*. Jim Caviezel was listed as an author since he wrote the
> foreword. It was given two barcodes since the book also contained a CD.
> The barcodes are 212580 for the book and 212581 for the CD.
>
> L____ had a request from Interlibrary loan for this title. We searched KOHA
> every way we could think to pull this title up and continued to get a
> message that "nothing was found".
>
> I went to World Cat and found the title with the indication that it was
> available at York College. In desperation, I checked the basic LC call
> number and found BT 306. I had L_____ go search the BT 306 section of the
> shelves and he found the book!
>
> Then after finding the book and having the barcode number, I tried to pull
> the book up by searching for the barcode number. Again, "nothing found".
>
> As a last resort, I went into the Reports area of KOHA and searched for the
> barcode number. Guess what! The Reports area found it. I clicked on the
> Biblio number and up came the record. Now the record was in there! Why
> wouldn't it come up when we searched for it?
>
> Another example.
>
> Dr. E____ asked me to order the 2014 Award winning books. I found
> the list and checked KOHA for each title to confirm that we didn't have a
> copy in the library. A couple of the books seemed familiar, but all I got
> was "not found". I prepared the requisition and ordered the titles.
>
> Well, the books came in last Friday. Tuesday I cataloged them. When I
> downloaded the cataloging from OCLC into KOHA, two of the titles didn't go
> in because they were duplicates!! I went back and tried to pull them up in
> KOHA and guess what! They came up. So this caused us to have 2 copies of
> these two titles. Fortunately it didn't cost more than $20 to get these
> titles, but KOHA needs to be working correctly so this doesn't happen
> again.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The point of this is that, from our librarians perspective, without a
> better search experience, Koha is "broken".
>
> Those are their words, not mine. Here's the thing: when I run a search in
> Koha, I do get back lots of results from our catalog that are highly
> relevant to the search terms. But these are exact title matches, and they
> come back with "Not found".
>
> How can I improve this?
>
>
>   Joel Coehoorn
> Director of Information Technology
> York College, Nebraska
> 402.363.5603
> *jcoehoorn at york.edu <jcoehoorn at york.edu>*
>
>
>
>
> The mission of York College is to transform lives through
> Christ-centered education and to equip students for lifelong service to
> God, family, and society
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
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>



-- 
Electronic Resource Librarian
SZABIST Islamabad
www.szabist-isb.edu.pk
arslan.farooq at szabist-isb.edu.pk
+92 514 863 363-65