Allow Alma phrase searching using quotation marks in quick search box
Our catalogers use the quick search box on the Alma homepage to do keyword searches for titles in our collection. Recently we discovered that using quotation marks around a phrase does not successfully keep the words together as a phrase in the search. The only way to search for a phrase is to use the Advanced Search, and change "Contains keywords" to "Contains phrase". This is very time consuming.
Sarah Johnson
shared this idea
As of January release Alma will support phrase search in the simple search box. All entities and index types that have the option to use phrase search in Alma’s advanced search also have this capability with simple search when using double quotation marks to identify the phrase.
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Mari Cheney
commented
I think this suggestion would be very helpful; do we know when this will be implemented?
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Alasdair MacDonald
commented
This would be a very useful thing to have, but would be even more useful if the text contained in the quotation marks or the phrase search included the ampersand character. This is common on title pages, with the word "and" added as an added title 246 field, which I'm not sure is included in the title search - please correct me if I'm wrong.
We have found that searching for a book called "Lucy & Tom's Christmas" will fail as a phrase or starts with advanced search if you type the above or the alternative "Lucy and Tom's Christmas" as a phrase, even though the alternative is in a 246 field. The only way to find it is a keyword search
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After reviewing this great idea, Alma Product Management has decided to update our development plans to include this suggested change. Thank you for your contribution