Search Strategies and Browsing Techniques

Search Strategies

SirsiDynix Symphony recognizes the following catalog searching tools.

When performing a search, avoiding typing a period ( . ) in the search string. The search engine used by SirsiDynix Symphony interprets the period as a search qualifier, and your search could return erroneous results.

Browsing Techniques

SirsiDynix Symphony recognizes the following catalog searching techniques.

Boolean Operators

Operators link search terms and define the relationship between them. Operators help to focus the search. Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR, and XOR) locate records containing matching terms in the library catalog. You can use Boolean operators to connect words or phrases between more than one text input field, or use Boolean operators to connect words or phrases within a text input field. The following list explains each operator.

Positional Operators

Positional operators (SAME, WITH, NEAR, ADJ) locate records in which the search terms are in close proximity. Positional operators can be used to connect words or phrases within a single field entry.

You can append a number to the operators, NEAR and ADJ, to limit or broaden the proximity between words. For example, ADJ2 means that the words may be within two searchable words of each other, but they must be in the order they were entered. The title From Here to Eternity could be searched as follows.

FROM ADJ1 HERE ADJ2 ETERNITY

As implemented in SirsiDynix Symphony, the SAME and WITH positional operators work identically. A sentence is defined in indexing routines used in SirsiDynix as a phrase or term followed a mark of terminal punctuation (specifically, a period, a question mark, an exclamation point, or a period followed by a right parenthesis) followed by two or more spaces. However, to normalize indexing of initialisms, SirsiDynix Symphony strips all but one space after terminal punctuation when records are indexed.

Relational Operators

Relational operators allow you to search numeral expressions. Use relational operators by enclosing a field name or entry tag number in braces { }, then typing a relational operator and number. SirsiDynix Symphony then locates records meeting this criteria. For example, if you type {DATE} <991022, SirsiDynix Symphony searches for records whose Date field contains values less than 991022.

Relational Operators Symbol and Descriptions

The following table describes the relational operators.

When the search expression consists of a combination of terms, the order in which these terms are searched can be defined. If two operators are at the same level in the list, SirsiDynix Symphony first searches the term at the left, then moves right. See the following list for operator precedence, with the highest listed first.

SirsiDynix Symphony will not allow you to search for operators when they are at the beginning or end of a search expression and not enclosed in double quotation marks.

The following examples come from the General search option in WorkFlows or the Word/Phrase option in the e-Library.

Examples:

The following search finds records with a publication year in 1998 with the term “dogs” in at least one indexed field.

dogs and {pbyr} = 1998

The following search finds all records with a publication year after 1998.

{pbyr} > 1998

The following search finds all records with Mark Twain as an author where the publication year is in or before 1965.

mark twain {au} and {pbyr} <= 1965

If you want to search a term that contains a relational operator, you must enclose the term in brackets.

For example, if you want to search the title E=mc2, type the following in the General search index.

“e=mc2”

Precise Phrase Searching

SirsiDynix Symphony allows a set of terms to be marked as a single phrase by enclosing the expression in single quotes. This enclosed search expression must be matched in the catalog exactly as typed in the search field. In the located records, the matched term(s) must also display in the same (adjacent) order as the order they were entered. However, the search expression can display in any of the heading fields searched using the index selected.

Nesting

SirsiDynix Symphony allows search expressions to be grouped or nested using parentheses. SirsiDynix Symphony searches the expression located in the innermost set of parentheses first. SirsiDynix Symphony continues the search, moving outward to the terms at the edges of the expression.

Searching Keyword Index Synonyms

Every record in the SirsiDynix Symphony database has standard entry tags. The most common format is the MARC format with MARC entry tags. SirsiDynix Symphony allows one or more MARC entry tags to be represented with an index synonym name. The search can be limited to certain fields and entries within a bibliographic record without typing several entry tags. Search the General index by entering the search term followed by the keyword index synonym enclosed in braces, or curly brackets. SirsiDynix Symphony searches only the specified entries/fields represented by this abbreviated name.

Any searchable keyword index external/internal synonym can be entered.

See the following list of SirsiDynix Symphony equivalent search fields for keyword indexes. These tags are most effective when conducting a general index search.

For example, to find any materials with the author Charles Dickens, enter a General search with the following text.

Dickens {AU}

SirsiDynix Symphony locates items by searching all of the MARC entry fields represented by the keyword index synonym, AU. In this example, SirsiDynix Symphony searches the 100, 110, 111, 700, 710, 711 entry tags for Dickens.

Searching Specified Entries

Every record in the SirsiDynix Symphony database has a particular format consisting of standard entry tags. SirsiDynix Symphony allows the search to be limited to certain fields and entries within a bibliographic record. In an appropriate search index, enter your search expression followed by the entry tag(s) enclosed in braces, or curly brackets. SirsiDynix Symphony locates only records with your search term in the specified entries/fields.

For example, to find materials with the primary personal author Charles Dickens, enter a General search with the following text.

Dickens {100}

SirsiDynix Symphony locates items by searching only the specified entry fields represented by the tag. In the preceding example, SirsiDynix Symphony will search the primary personal author (100) entry tags for Dickens.

Enter multiple entries separated by a space only. In the following example, SirsiDynix Symphony will search both the primary (100) and secondary (700) personal author entries.

Dickens {100 700}

Any entries may be combined in a single search. In the following example, SirsiDynix Symphony will search the main title (245) entries and the primary (100) personal author entries.

Dickens {100 245}

The following entries are some of the most common MARC and Technical Report entry tags.

Other formats use different entry tags and fields appropriate to the database you are searching.

Stopwords

SirsiDynix Symphony can be configured to ignore specified words when searching the catalog. This feature allows SirsiDynix Symphony to search on the keywords of an expression. These stopwords are usually articles, prepositions, or conjunctions. The following list identifies typically defined stop words.

For example, if you type the title The Book of Lists in the Title field, SirsiDynix Symphony locates items with the words “Book” and “Lists” in the title. The terms “the” and “of” are not searched. If you type a search expression that contains all stopwords, the following message appears.

Your search contains all stopwords

Enclose the expression in double quotation marks to prevent the stopwords from being ignored.

Substitution and Truncation

SirsiDynix Symphony allows the symbols ? and $ to be used to represent substitution and truncation. Use the ? symbol as a substitute for a missing character in a search term. Use the $ symbol to truncate a search term. These two symbols can be used together or separately. These symbols may only be used at the middle or end.

Many symbols/characters are used to enhance a catalog search, such as relational operators and the symbols ? and $. To literally search these symbols/characters, enclose them with quotation marks.

Substitution

The ? symbol is used as a substitute for a missing character in a search term, usually when you are unsure of a spelling or when you want to find two forms of one word.

For example, type wom?n in the search field. SirsiDynix Symphony locates the appropriate records containing either “woman” or “women.”

Truncation

Truncation is unlimited character substitution. The $ symbol is used to truncate search terms and can represent a single characters, many characters, or no characters. If you follow the $ symbol with a number, SirsiDynix Symphony limits the number of characters matched. When more than one term in a search expression is truncated, each term is searched for all variations. When truncated words produce too many variations to search, a partial list is retrieved.

For example, if you type Jame$ in the search field, SirsiDynix Symphony locates records containing the terms: Jame, James, Jameson, and Jamerton.

Searching Numbers in a List

To individually search numbers in a list, you must type a space between each number. SirsiDynix Symphony searches numbers separated by commas as if the numbers were not separated.

For example, SirsiDynix Symphony searches 1,2,3,4,5 as a single term, but SirsiDynix Symphony searches 1 2 3 4 5 as 1 SAME 2 SAME 3 SAME 4 SAME 5. SirsiDynix Symphony searches 5000 and 5,000 as the same term.

Searching Special Characters

SirsiDynix Symphony supports 256 characters in its full bibliographic record. Given terminals and printers that can’t print all 256 characters, SirsiDynix Symphony prints, displays, and indexes on those characters designated as ASCII printing characters. The remainder of the 256 characters is transliterated with printing characteristics as specified in a configurable file called characters. If a non-ASCII, nonprinting character is not located in this file, the character is replaced with an asterisk (*) for printing and is left blank for displaying and indexing.

Transliterated Characters

The following table contains transliterated characters as well as the replacement characters to use when searching a term containing a transliterated character.

Punctuation

When the following punctuation marks are included in a search expression, SirsiDynix Symphony either replaces the punctuation marks with spaces, or searches variations of the search expression containing the punctuation, or ignores the punctuation marks.

To search a punctuation mark as a literal character, the expression must be enclosed in quotation marks.

Periods

SirsiDynix Symphony searches periods based on how this punctuation mark displays in the search expression. If not used as a decimal mark within a numeral, the period is replaced with spaces. If the period is used as a decimal mark, it is not replaced with a space.

For example, the title Vacationland U.S.A. would be searched as the following.

title ==> VACATIONLAND U S A

The title 98.6: a novel would be searched as the following.

Title ==> 98.6 NOVEL

Commas

SirsiDynix Symphony also replaces commas within a search expression with a space.

For example, the title Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories will be searched as the following.

Title ==> GOODBYE COLUMBUS FIVE SHORT STORIES

Hyphens

Search expressions containing hyphens are searched with the hyphen included. A search without the hyphen displays words both with and without the hyphen.

For example, the title Camp-fire Girls will be searched as the following.

Title ==> CAMP-FIRE GIRLS

Only titles that include a hyphen between Camp and Fire will display.

A search for Camp Fire Girls broadens the search to include the phrase “Camp Fire” with and without the hyphen.

Title ==> CAMP FIRE GIRLS

Title ==> CAMP-FIRE GIRLS

A search for the term as one word, Campfire Girls, returns only the following results.

Title ==> CAMPFIRE GIRLS

Miscellaneous Symbols

The following table contains additional special characters. These characters do not affect searching. Some of these characters are replaced by a space; some are ignored.

Superscript and subscript characters may be searched by entering either the actual superscript or subscript character, or standard character equivalents.

Searching by Publication Year

When a search is limited by publication year, you may wonder which fields are used.

When limiting a search by publication year, you are not actually using MARC21 fields, CENDI fields, or UNIMARC fields for this search. Instead, you are searching the Publication Year field, which is really a separate field maintained by SirsiDynix Symphony, and not visible in the bibliographic display of the full record. The Publication Year field is populated when a record is created in the workstation or imported/loaded through the MarcImport Utility wizard or the SmartPort wizard.

MARC21 Publication Year

SirsiDynix Symphony determines the Publication Year field by searching following information:

SirsiDynix Symphony searches in the order given above, and as soon as a non-blank entry is found, the value is used for the publication year. If all tags with a data entry type of publication date are empty, then the publication date field of the item will be blank.

If the DATE1 field contains a date or partial date (such as 19uu), it determines the date that appears in the Pub Year column of the search hitlist. Once a date has been entered in DATE1, the PubYear column will display that date until DATE1 is changed to another date. For example, if DATE1 contains the incorrect date of 1996 and the real date is unknown, the only way to clear 1996 from the PubYear is by typing “uuuu” in the DATE1 field. You cannot simply delete 1996 and leave the DATE1 field empty.

After a record has been created/loaded, modifying one of the above fields does not necessarily affect the SirsiDynix Symphony Publication Year field. For instance in MARC21 records, modifying a 260|c will not cause the Pub Year field to be updated if the 008 DATE1 contains a value.

UNIMARC Publication Year

For UNIMARC records, SirsiDynix Symphony determines the Publication Year field by searching the following information:

SirsiDynix Symphony searches in the order given above, and as soon as a non-blank entry is found, the value is used for the publication year.

If the U100 DATE1 is not found, and if the U210 |d either doesn't exist or doesn't contain a 4-digit value, SirsiDynix Symphony will not reset the publication year.

Browsing Techniques

Using special techniques, SirsiDynix Symphony allows the following types of browsing.

Numbers in a List

When you browse lists of numbers that should be located individually, insert a space between the numbers in the list. SirsiDynix Symphony browses numbers separated by commas as if the numbers were not separated.

For example:

Specified Entries

Every record in the SirsiDynix Symphony database has a particular format consisting of standard entry tags. The most common format is the MARC format with MARC entry tags. SirsiDynix Symphony allows you to limit your browse to certain fields and entries within a bibliographic record. SirsiDynix Symphony locates only the specified entries/fields in the records for your browse term.

Other formats use different entry tags and fields appropriate to the database you are searching.

Call Number Browse Range

When browsing the catalog based on a call number, entering a call number outside the range of library call numbers displays the browse heading closest to your entered number.

For example:

SirsiDynix Consulting Services can assist you with specialized searching needs, such as a library catalog with a mix of titles with American and British spellings. For example, the following exception list entry could generate search results for both the -or suffix in American English and the -our suffix in British or Canadian English.

OR OUR

In this case, a search for "harbor" would return titles that included both the word "harbor" and the word "harbour."

If a catalog used a language with both a simple and a complex plural form, both those forms could be included in search results if plural searching was enabled. For example, the following exception list entry could generate search results for both older and newer forms of plurals of the word "index."

INDEX INDEXES INDICES

By default, this feature is delivered turned off and plural equivalence is not applied to SirsiDynix Symphony searching.

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