Friday, December 3, 2010

Locked Scope Searching

Yesterday we introduced a new, highly requested, feature to Encore that locks your search results to your school's collection.






You no longer have to go back into your school's page in LION to perform subsequent searches of only your catalog- the search box at the top of the Encore results will automatically filter to books in your collection.



This functionality also works when searches for misspelled words are performed:



Friday, November 19, 2010

Encore 4.0

The LION search results platform was recently upgraded- here are some new features in the catalog:


  • ISBN & call number searching is now available in Encore. Type either number directly into your search box- you don't need to "tell" Encore what type of search you are performing.



  • Google Book previews are now available in the bibliographic details. Not all books will have a preview, so just check for the link below the jacket image.




  • Integrated results from online databases are now also displayed when you perform a search. The "top results" from articles are displayed after the first 3 results from books, and there is also an "Articles" option in the Format facet. If you only want results from online databases, click the "Articles" link at the top of the screen. (Please note: NetTrekker & Britannica Elementary results are currently not working but will be added soon.)








Feel free to leave and questions or comments about the changes here, or you can email the helpdesk.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Enhanced Wildcard Searching

We showed you last year how to use asterisks to perform wildcard searches in Encore. However, that feature requires you to have at least 2 other characters in the search query- so you couldn't just search for * and see your entire collection displayed in the results.

To work around this issue, we've added the three character OCLC library code for Denver Public Schools ("DPU") to every bib record in the catalog. Now if you search for "DPU" from your school's scoped page, every book in your collection will display in the results- or if you search for "DPU" from the home page in LION, every book in the entire district will display in the results.

Here are some examples of uses for this new functionality:

  • Let's say you have a new student that recently moved to Denver from Moscow. If you search for DPU and then refine the results using the "Language" facet to Russian, you will be able to see every book in DPS written in the student's native language.

  • Perhaps you have a teacher at your school frantically looking for a DVD to show their class because they waited too long to order from the Video Film Library. If you search from your scoped page for DPU and then refine to "DVD" in the Format facet, you can quickly show them every DVD in your collection.

  • Searching for DPU and then using the "Publish Date" facet could quickly help you find the oldest books in your collection that potentially need to be weeded.

  • If you have a student looking for a good book to read, searching for DPU and refining your results to "Reviewed Book" in the format facet will display every book in your collection that has a published review written by a DPS librarian.


If you have any other suggestions for uses of this feature you would like to share, leave a message in the comments section or send an email to the helpdesk.