National Library of Australia
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Searching on collections in Advanced Search

CONTENTS

  1. Introduction
  2. Specification of the new classes of records
  3. Implementation of new classes of records as collections
  4. How to search using the new search interface
  5. Action that may be performed on queries

1. Introduction

The new KineticaWeb Advanced Search interface has been redesigned to provide a much simpler way of limiting searches to particular material types and/or categories of material.

Groups of records on the National Bibliographic Database (NBD) that are now more accessible for searching include:

  • books
  • journals
  • newspapers·
  • maps·
  • pictures·
  • film / video
  • Australian publication
  • government publication
  • conference publication
  • publications for young people·
  • theses
  • electronic publication

Users limit searches to the above groups of records by ticking checkboxes against them.

Without the enhancements, users will need to know the appropriate index/es to search on, what to search for with respect to these index/es, and how to locate the index/es from the drop down index lists. In some cases, searches are so complex that there are not enough input fields on the Advanced Search interface to support them.

The redesigned Advanced Search screen is shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: The new look Advanced Search screen

2. Specification of the new classes of records

Description MARC mapping Index mapping
Books Leader 06=a and Leader 07= a, c, d, m or Leader 06=t MAT=t OR (MAT = a AND (BIB = a OR BIB = c OR BIB = d OR BIB = m))
Journals Leader 06=a and Leader 07= b, s and Control Field 008/21<>n MAT = a AND (BIB = s OR BIB = b) NOT SEY = n
Newspapers Control field 008/21=n SEY = n
Pictures Leader 06=k MAT = k
Maps Leader 06=e or Leader 06=f MAT = e OR MAT = f
Film / Video Leader 06=g and Control field 008/33= m or v MAT = g AND (VMM = m OR VMM = v )
Australian Content Indicator CCI = 1 CCI = 1
Government publications Control field 008/28 =a, c, f, i, l, m, o, s, z GOV = a OR GOV = c OR GOV = f OR GOV = l OR GOV = m OR GOV = o OR GOV = s OR GOV = z
Conference publication *Control field 008/29=1 CNF = 1
Publications for young people **Control field 008/22 = a, b, c, j BKA = a OR BKA = b OR BKA = c OR BKA = j
Theses Control field 008/24-27=m NAT = m
Electronic publication Control field 008/23=s or 245$h=electronic resource or 856 field is present FRM = s OR TW = electronic resourceNo index for presence of 856 tag

*Applicable to books and journals only

**Not applicable to Maps or Journals

3. Implementation of new classes of records as collections

The new classes of records are implemented as collections for searching purposes.

Records are defined to a collection if they meet criteria for a particular material type or category of material (eg. Records are defined to the collection "Maps" if they meet the following criteria: MAT = e OR MAT = f).
The following table provides information on the collections implemented in Kinetica:

Collection name Description No of records (NBD) at 8 September 2004
12 Books 10,422,643
14 Journals 1,092,654
16 Newspapers 122,051
20 Pictures 156,145
18 Maps 154,105
22 Film / Video 212,984
50 Australian Content Indicator 2,197,764
52 Government publications 1,156,552
54 Conference publication 307,080
56 Publications for young people 467,408
58 Theses 230,469
60 Electronic publication 637,566

When you search on a group of records such as "Books", Kinetica searches on the collection 12, rather than on the associated Material Type and Bibliographic Level indexes. Searching on collections is potentially quicker than searching on indexes.

Example:

Your actions: You search on the Name index for "Gibson, Mel" and tick the checkbox "Film / Video"
The results: Your query will display in the Results Summary and View Results screens as "NA Gibson, Mel AND CTN 22"

Identifiers used for collections are not very user-friendly (e.g. CTN22 instead of "Film / Video"). This is something which will need to be addressed in the future.

Collections are refreshed first thing every morning, and there is a lag of at most one working day from the time a record is added or updated, to the time that record is included in the appropriate collection.

A record may be included in more than one collection (eg. A record can be included in the "Books" collection, as well as in the "Australian publications" collection). However, a record may not be included in every collection (eg. A record cannot exist in the "Pictures" and in the "Newspapers" collections). This is because the rules for defining collections are not always consistent with each other (eg. SEY = n is not consistent with MAT = k).

4. How to search using the new search interface

The default status for the checkboxes is "unticked". You do not have to tick a checkbox to submit a query.

You may select on more than one checkbox. In effect, you are searching for records that are included in all collections associated with the checkboxes you ticked.

Example:

Your actions: You tick the checkboxes for Books and government publication
The results: Your search is limited to books published by Australian and overseas governments.

Note that there may be times when no records meet the criteria of being in all collections you nominated.

Example:

Your actions: You tick the checkboxes for Books and Newspapers
The results: Your search returns an empty result set - an item cannot be both a book and a newspaper

The Material Type, Nature of Contents and Gov't Publication indexes will remain available to users in the drop down index lists, as checkboxes do not replace the use of these indexes for searching. The Australian Contents Indicator remains an index in the drop down index list.

You may combine index searching with collection (checkbox) searching. Indeed, you may not submit a query if you do not perform at least one index search (that is, if you do not enter any search terms in any of the input fields).

Example:

Your actions: You tick the checkboxes for Film / Video, but you do not enter any search terms in any of the input fields
The results: An error 684 will be returned

When you combine index searching with collection (checkbox) searching, you may inadvertently combine searches that are inconsistent with each other.

Example:

Your actions: You tick the checkboxes for Maps, but you enter "j" in the input field against the Material Type index
The results: Empty result set - you are searching for maps that are also musical sound recordings.

While searching on collections potentially delivers better response times than equivalent searching using indexes, response times are still an issue with queries that are too complex (ie - combines too many searches), or which combine keyword and non keyword searching.

If you do need to submit queries of this nature, be aware that you may experience poor response times.

Example:

Your actions: You input the following query:
SW nutrition AND DAT > 1980 AND conference publication and journal
The results: You may experience a poor response time

5. Action that may be performed on queries

When you click on the Clear Query button, the Advanced Search screen will revert to its default settings. Any ticked checkboxes will become "unticked", and the contents of all input fields will be emptied.

You may store queries as usual, even if they incorporate searches on collections.

Example:

Your actions: You perform the following query and store it
Search for "Gibson, Mel" against the Name index and tick the checkbox "Film / Video"
The results: Query is stored as "NA Gibson, Mel AND CTN 22" in Stored Queries