No result searches / Did you mean?
We have problems with patrons entering full citations into the Summon search box and getting no results, even though we hold the item in question.
We want the developers to alter the Summon search algorithm so it automatically removes punctuation from searches, enabling more useful search results!
(We already trying to use the translations feature to alter the ‘suggestions to improve your search’)
Anja Pedersen
shared this idea
In the spring of 2023, we made changes to our algorithm to improve the handling of citation searches. We are now using AI to parse these queries to increase the likelihood of a successful search.
While this improvement may not solve all issues with citation searches, our internal testing shows significant improvement.
-
Virginia Dearborn commented
I'm not sure that taking out the punctuation would help, especially if someone has included the issue number or a range of page numbers in the citation. Maybe there's some way to bring journal or book titles to the top of relevancy ranking when a query is run with a full citation, based on the way citations are constructed? (Also, thanks for the 'suggestions to improve your search' tip, Anja!)
-
Kirsty Carr
commented
This would be useful for library staff who copy metadata direct from their LMS too.
-
James Blake
commented
The second most common reason for no result searches for us is patrons entering full citations, so it would be great to have a fix for this. (The most common reason is spelling mistakes.)