Frequently Asked Questions about Customizing CARLI/I-Share WebVoyage

Q. Why is "Any Word Anywhere" the default search option?

A. Any Word Anywhere was chosen as the default for our catalog for a number of reasons, but most notably because the other general search candidate available at the time, Boolean Search (Keyword), does not have a default operator. From the patron's perspective, this means that for Boolean searches they must either search their words as a phrase (remembering to include quotation marks) or include one of the Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) between each and every word to get results.

While it is true that the Any Word Anywhere search is an OR search, the most relevant searches will have all of the search terms in the most highly weighted fields (Title, Subject). The relevancy rankings should help patrons identify those items that are the closest to what they seek. The task force believes that relevancy ranking is a concept most of our patrons are already familiar with from their use of Internet search engines.

While this search may not be the first choice for the experienced searcher (although the experienced searcher can use it very effectively) we do feel that it does provide a good, less frustrating option for the unmediated search.

In the current version of Voyager it would be possible to offer an Any Word Anywhere search in which the default operator was AND rather than OR. Usability tests conducted by the ILCSO OPAC Usability Testing Task Force generated no evidence that this would be a welcome change for the users. The current I-Share Users Group OPAC Team believes that OR is the better default operator to retain at least until some kind of spell-checking functionality has been added to the catalog.

Q. Why isn't a Title Keyword search offered on the Quick Search page?

A. Until the most recent version of WebVoyage a keyword title search on the Quick Search page would always treat users' multi-word input as a phrase, rather than as words that could appear in any order and that might be separated by other words. The task force thought this would cause too much frustration for users.

Control over the default operator on keyword searches is now available. The IUG OPAC Team has begun to reconsider what searches to include on the Quick Search page. They have stated to IUG that usability test results would help them make good recommendations.

Q. Why does WebVoyage look the way it does and can my library change it?

A. The IUG OPAC Team welcomes constructive suggestions for improvement of the default CARLI/I-Share WebVoyage. The consortium's WebVoyage Customization Guidelines allow libraries to customize many aspects of their local implementation of WebVoyage, including color changes, the sequence in which bibliographic fields display, and more.

CARLI staff are currently working toward a way to allow all I-Share libraries to modify much of the look and feel of their local catalog interface via Cascading Style Sheets. WebVoyage configuration files have to be "retrofitted" to support stylesheets, so this process is fairly arduous and CARLI cannot yet announce a target date for completion.

Q. Can libraries opt to display the "Advanced Search" as the initial search page, instead of the "Quick Search" page?

A. Yes. There are several ways to accomplish this.

If a library wants to build a link directly to the Advanced Search page, the URL to use is http://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/xxx/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=bbSearch (where xxx is the three-letter code for the institution).

If a library wants the Advanced search page to be the left-most tab on the WebVoyage search pages, this requires editing the search.ini file, one of the WebVoyage configuration files. Library liaisons may file a Work Request to ask CARLI staff to make this change on their behalf.

Q. Why is the timeout interval so short?

A. The timeout interval for WebVoyage, the web-based interface to I-Share, is currently set at 600 seconds, or ten minutes. A "live" WebVoyage session (even one that is no longer "active" from the user's point of view, because the user has pointed her browser elsewhere or has walked away from her workstation) consumes finite system resources. An idle session in one place makes resources unavailable to a user in another place.

Another consideration is that WebVoyage has only one timeout interval, which applies to both "anonymous" sessions and to logged-on sessions. (Users log on when they place requests or visit their MyAccount page.) Even if CARLI had infinite system resources we would want to keep the timeout interval relatively short, given the current design of WebVoyage software, for the sake of users who log on with their borrower ID but then walk away from their workstation.

CARLI staff continue to work with Ex Libris to improve all aspects of I-Share's performance.