[bksvol-discuss] Re: Getting The Most From the New Search System
- From: "Chela Robles" <cdrobles693@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:32:32 -0800
Oh yes, we certainly can do this! Chuckle!
--
Chela Robles
E-Mail: cdrobles693@xxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: Monica Willyard
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:18 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Getting The Most From the New Search System
Hi everybody. I know several of you are having trouble with the new Bookshare
search system. Maybe this will help to make things clearer. I know it will take
some getting used to. I think you'll find some hidden treasure once you know
how to make the system work for you. They have given us more power, and they
haven't taken anything away. It has just changed a bit. Once you learn how it
works, I think you'll be hooked.
Bookshare has two types of search now. They're intended to work in different
ways. One type of search, the one that works in the search box at the top of
most of the Bookshare pages, is a keyword or full text search. Bookshare calls
it Quick Search because it's so easy to use. It searches for the words you type
into that box, searching through the title, author, ISBN, and the full text of
the books. Think of this as searching through an entire library archive for
something you want.
If multiple words are entered, they are treated as a phrase. Entering more
words will result in more exclusive results. So if you search for the word
"king", Bookshare will return matches for "Alan King", "Stephen King", "The
King and I", etc. Searching for Stephen king will only return results where the
words Stephen King are part of the author's name, or where the words Stephen
king appear somewhere in the text. With this search, you might find a sentence
that says, "Stephen wouldn't rest until he became king." Not what you wanted?
For even better control, search for "Stephen King" using quotation marks to get
an exact match. (see below.) Author searches will be matched as "First name
Last name". Partial word matches are not done, so "king" will not match
"kingfisher".
If the Bookshare search detects that the search term is a number, it will
assume it's an ISBN and try to match on that. This is an easy way to find out
if a book you're viewing on Amazon is in the Bookshare collection.
If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotation marks around your
search phrase. Searching for "Harry Potter" will only find books where Harry
Potter's name appears. It won't show things like Harold Potter, Harry B.
Potter, or Harry Potts.
If you don't know how to spell a word you want to search for, try using an
asterisk, (also known as a star), as a wild card. You can use the "*" wildcard
as many times as you like. Typing *ing will match words like king, string,
ping, etc. If you don't know how to spell Espresso, you could type *presso to
find it. You would find any books that mention Espresso in the title, author,
or full text of books.
Play with this for awhile to see how the search box behaves when you use
quotes and star wild cards. You can't break anything, and it's safe to
experiment.
If you put the title of a book in quotes, like "No Place To Hide" you should
see that book listed in one of the top five search results. If you don't see
that title on the first page of search results, it probably isn't in the
Bookshare collection. However, if you want to search for a specific title or
author, you may prefer the second type of search.
The advanced search, found at http://www.bookshare.org/search lets you target
your search better. You can search specifically for titles, authors, ISBNs, or
the full text of the book. You can narrow your search by book quality,
category, or other criteria. If you bookmark this URL, you can use it to
quickly check to see if a book is in the collection.
Finally, you may have noticed that the site looks a little different when you
view search results or browse books. This is because Bookshare lets us see the
title, author, synopsis, and an excerpt showing the context of your search
words in context. The download links are below that. It means faster browsing
for us since we don't have to arrow past the download buttons, read the
synopsis, and arrow back to download the book. It's a small yet really helpful
change. I really like it.
If you have any questions, please ask. I'll do my best to help you. If I
don't know the answer, we'll figure it out together. This is a new feature, and
we're all learning to use it. There may be bugs to be fixed. If so, Bookshare
support needs to know. If you need help understanding how the new search works,
let's work it out together. We can do this.
Monica Willyard
"The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker
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