New Features in the I-Share Union Catalog

The CARLI Office is pleased to announce that the new index for the I-Share union catalog is now in place. The new index supports three major enhancements to the VuFind interface:

1. As in the VuFind local catalogs, publication dates will now display correctly in the union catalog for RDA-cataloged titles.
2. Also as in the VuFind local catalogs new format facets are now available in the I-Share union catalog for eight specific media or carrier types: Audio CD, Audiocassette, Vinyl LP; Blu-ray, DVD, VHS, Film [reel]; and Slide.
3. Perhaps most significantly for I-Share users, and uniquely in the I-Share union catalog, there is now a new search filter available: "Hide eResources to which I don't have access." Users who log on or who connect to the union catalog from their local catalog (so that the URL for their connection contains an I-Share library's three-letter code) will see a new checkbox immediately below the search input box. On the Advanced Search page the new checkbox appears below the "Version" limit options.

A few details about the "Hide eResources to which I don't have access" filter are below. First, though, a word of caution: this filter is necessarily experimental. CARLI staff have tested it to the best of our ability in a protected environment. We cannot be certain, however, that it will perform acceptably in I-Share's production environment, with heavy usage. We will of course be monitoring performance closely. We ask for your patience while we continue to tune and make adjustments. If you notice that response time in the I-Share union catalog is degraded, please report this to CARLI, in an email to support@carli.illinois.edu.

The "Hide eResources to which I don't have access" filter will remove from the user's retrieval set any bib records for electronic resources that do not have either the user's own library's holdings or HathiTrust holdings attached to them. CARLI hopes this will reduce users' frustration about being "teased" with pointers to resources to which they do not have access.

Note that because the filter removes all eResources that do not have the user's library's or HathiTrust holdings on them, it necessarily removes any freely available/public domain eResources that other I-Share libraries happen to have cataloged and to which the user actually would have had access. This is an unavoidable portion of "wheat" that will be discarded with the "chaff" whenever the user chooses to exclude eResources. Similarly (but relevant only to SFX libraries), because the filter will remove all eJournal records that do not have the user's library's or HathiTrust holdings on them, users who apply the filter will not benefit as often from other libraries' catalog records that lead them, via SFX, to their own library's eJournal subscriptions.

Users who specifically want to find only their own library's electronic resources will still be best served by searching their library's local catalog. Users who want to discover and perhaps request materials from other I-Share libraries' and yet not retrieve records for unrequestable and inaccessible electronic resources will now have that option in the I-Share union catalog. 

Please send questions or concerns to support@carli.illinois.edu.