Symphony search strategies : Workflows keyword searching
Much of the power and advantage of Sirsi's Symphony is in its keyword searching functionality, powered by the site's ability to customize indexing through format-specific indexing policy tables. These policy tables enable one to pinpoint certain types of information provided in both the bibliographic or title record and its corresponding call number and item records.
Architecture of Unicorn bibliographic information
Before we can understand how searching works in Workflows it is important to understand the relationship of the three levels of bibliographic description associated with a book or other information resource and what types of unique data they contain. In Sirsispeak, these are called the title, call number, and copy records. The distinction between the latter two is a Symphony peculiarity.
Title record
The title record consists of the MARC bibliographic record describing an information resource, along with management information appropriate at this level. The other data includes several fields that Unicorn uses internally to display holdings information in the OPAC plus date stamps indicating when activities, like record creation or editing, have transpired. The added MARC fields are:
596 |
Held by |
Owning libraries (contents supplied/subtracted by ADUTEXT) |
597 |
Call # overflow |
For migrated DRA call # > 40 characters, shows entire call # |
599 |
Latest issues |
Contains last issue received as reported by Serials module |
The following table shows management information which is primarily used in reports for restricting results to records added by a particular group, in a particular date range, or by format. The last two columns indicate whether the field is accessible through a keyword search or report.
Field name |
Meaning |
Search |
Report |
---|---|---|---|
Title control number |
See Control Numbers |
x |
x |
Record format |
Monograph, Serial, Computer File, Music, etc. |
x |
x |
Created by |
Work group responsible for loading or creating record. |
|
x |
Date cataloged |
Date flag manually set by catalogers when finished |
|
x |
Previously modified |
Work group responsible for last record edit |
|
x |
Date created |
Date first loaded into ILS |
|
x |
Date modified |
Date record last edited |
|
x |
Modified by |
Work group responsible for last record edit |
|
x |
Call number/volume record
The call number record is associated with an owning LIBRARY and contains that library's call number and volume information. There are only four fields at this level:
Field name |
Meaning |
Search |
Report |
---|---|---|---|
Call number |
Classification, book Cutter and volume information (|z) |
x |
x |
Class scheme |
LC, SUDOC, ALPHANUM--determines sort in call number browse |
x |
x |
Library |
Branch holding volume |
x |
x |
Shelving key |
Actual call number as sorted for call number browse |
|
|
Copy record
The copy or item info contains attributes associated with a particular copy of a volume, including the item ID or barcode. This is the source for several of the filters used in both the catalog and reports, including the "Limit by Material" and "Reference Resources Only" filters in the public catalog.
Field name |
Meaning |
Search |
Report |
---|---|---|---|
Item ID |
Barcode or unique piece identifier |
x |
x |
New copy number |
System-assigned, but can be edited |
|
x |
Price |
Can be automatically generated, but NCSU not using |
|
x |
Permanent |
Except for items in Reserve, should be set to YES |
|
x |
Circulate |
If yes, item circs according to ITEM TYPE policy |
|
x |
Total charges |
Number of times item has been charged out; carried over from DRA |
|
x |
Library |
Carried over from volume record |
|
x |
Type |
Circulation class, but also useful for specific material type searches |
x |
x |
Home location |
Location of item when not charged out |
x |
x |
Item cat1 |
Gross item types for OPAC filtering under "Limit by Material" |
x |
x |
Item cat2 |
OPAC Filter for Reference, govdoc and gift materials |
x |
x |
Current location |
Location when item is charged out may identify dummy patron such as MISSING, |
|
x |
Number of pieces |
Count of number of physical pieces associated with volume; |
|
x |
Comments |
Staff-only notes about item; searchable only as present/not present |
|
x |
General search
These are the most powerful of all Symphony searches, as these search all indexed MARC fields. A table of keyword searchable fields is available on this site. We were fairly liberal in including fields for keyword indexing, so in addition to the usual author, title, series, and subject fields, we have access to all control number fields (010, 020, 022, 035, 918, 919), many of the coded fields (043, 045, 048, etc.), all call number fields (050, 055, 060, 070, 082, 090), most note (5xx) fields, edition (250), imprint (260, 264) and pagination (300), serial frequency (310), and even the URI field (856). An unqualified search will retrieve information from any of these fields, but Symphony also allows for searching specific MARC fields using braces (set or "squiggly brackets"). Note that more than one field can be addressed at a time using this methodology and the use of spaces before the bracket and between field tags is optional.
- ncdocs {086} and forestry {650,651} (all NC state documents have the qualifier "ncdocs" in the document number field)
- burford{505} (retrieves from author statements in table of contents; useful for conference proceedings)
- oxford university press{260} and shakespeare
- IEEE {111, 711} and GaAs
- chiefly ill {300} and architecture {650} (retrieves architecture books that are heavily illustrated)
- brando {511} (retrieves actors names from movie performer note)
- netlibrary{856} (searches for a string within the 856, in the |uURL or |y|z|3notes)
Logical operators
Boolean operators
AND retrieves records containing all of the specified terms and in one or more MARC fields.
OR retrieves records matching any or all of the specified terms.
NOT retrieves records containing the first search term but not the second.
XOR (exclusive OR) retrieves records matching any of the specified terms but not all of the specified terms.
Positional operators
SAME is the unstated default operator in Symphony and will retrieve records in which a single MARC field contains all of the specified terms. If the field contains multiple sentences, the search will continue through all. If you need to search across multiple MARC record fields, use AND.
WITH retrieves records in which a single MARC field contains a sentence with all of the specified terms.
NEAR retrieves records in which a field contains all of the search terms next to each other, though not necessarily in the order in which you entered them.
ADJ retrieves records in which a field contains all of the search terms adjacent to each other and in the order they were entered, even where the words may not be in the same sentence or subfield.
Relational operators
(>, <, =, <>, >=, <=).
smart adj materials
>1990{260}
(shakespeare and lear {245}) not (videorecording or penguin)
Substitution (wildcards) and truncation
The substitution character (?) enables the user to replace a single missing character in a search:
monomolecul$ (retrieves "monomolecule", "monomolecules", "monomolecular", etc.)
anders?n (retrieves "Andersen" and "Anderson")
wom?n (retrieves "woman" and "women")
196? (retrieves "1960", "1961", "1962", etc.
The truncation symbol ($) may be used to replace any number of alphabetic characters, either within a term or at its end. Unlike the ?, $ does not work for truncating numbers. It can be used for searching word roots, singular/plural terms, variant U.S./British spellings, misspellings, or base Dewey or LC call numbers. Optionally, use of a number after the $ enables the user to specify the number of characters you intend to replace. Here are some examples:
command$ (retrieves "command", "commands", "commandment", "Commander", "Commandante", etc.)
substitut$3 (retrieves "substitute", "substitutes", "substitution")
brit$n (retrieves "Britain", "Britian", "Briton", "Britten", "britischen")
col$2r (retrieves "color", "colour", "collar")
541$ {082} (retrieves "541.3451", "541.22", etc. from the Dewey class number field)
QA76$ (retrieves "QA76", "QA76.5", "QA76.76.H45", etc.)
To perform a search for a term with a dollar sign or question mark in it (e.g., $1,000,000), enclose the search term in double quotes.
Searches without search terms
Symphony is one of the few integrated library systems that allows users to perform searches using filters only, or even searches without filters at all. These are extremely useful in enabling staff to quickly count titles by library, format, circ type, year of publication, or by any combination of the above. Filtered searches can be done using any of the categories under "Set Options for Item Lookup", the binocular icon found at the upper left of the any of the search windows in Workflows. You must have first selected the "Search" option to use all the filters. Your choices for browse are limited.
Filter-only search
To get a count of or to see all titles held at a branch or library without using filters, you will need to use "#0" (pound-zero) as your search argument. These searches take longer than filtered searches, so be prepared to wait for up to a minute for your results. Note, that if you are using any filter from the "Set options" icon, the "#0" is not needed and will only slow down your search. To get a count of all titles in the catalog simply leave the default of ALL under library and enter "#0" in the search box. If it's volumes or copies you wanted to count, sorry, you will need to run a report! Note that a #0 count will include ALL title records associated with a library, including Reserves, titles on order, withdrawn or lost, unused Marcive Shipping List records, and brief on-the-fly records that may have a corresponding bib record elsewhere in the catalog.