ryonen
commented
7 years ago Not only just for collector - for all fields where there're likely to be a huge number of option to select from. E.g. If you use Advanced search to get all the collections made by a particular collector, the number of different species from different genera etc. in that list is potentially enormous.
Where the list of searchable alternatives in the facets is extremely long (e.g. Collector’s name) it would be great to introduce a function where the user can enter the first letter of the word and have it jump to the start of that letter in the list e.g. type [S], jump to "Sa'ad, F.". Currently it is only possible to sort by Collector and then scroll through the entire list (which starts with a whole series of symbols and oddities before it hits [A]).
This issue was raised by a colleague at the Australian National Herbarium who spent a day playing with AVH and ALA working out how to cobble together a URL to link a large number of individual Collector name searches together in order to create a map showing all the collections made by M.E. Sutton nee Nightingale through time. She used AVH for her search (http://avh.ala.org.au/search/#tab_advanceSearch; note that only one name can be searched at a time) because ALA doesn't have 'Collector' as a searchable option in its Advanced search page -http://biocache.ala.org.au/search#tab_advanceSearch; it's definitely more of a collections institution thing to want to search by collector). That would be a useful addition to ALA if, for e.g., all the collections made by a particular naturalist (and therefore including plant and animal specimens) were to be sought.
Following from my colleagues email I attempted to select all records by [N]ightingale and [S]utton (M. Nightingale, M.E. Nightingale, M. Sutton and M.E. Sutton records (plus all others in which these names are given as co-collectors) out of the pool of all available herbarium specimens (http://avh.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=#tab_mapView) using the Collector facet. Yikes! I scrolled for 30 mins and I was still in the letter A…
Some improvements here would be to 1) allow multiple names to be searched in Advanced searches; 2) allow users to jump to the letter of interest rather than scroll through everything; 3) increase the number of names that can be selected at any one time - currently only 15 things can be selected, which is problematic when a collector is linked to a large number of co-collectors or the name is formed slightly differently (e.g. G.J. Keighery vs G. J. Keighery vs G. Keighery vs Keighery, G.J vs Keighery, G.; Gibon, N. etc.) and each combination is a separate entry:
http://avh.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=collector_text%3AKeighery&qc=data_hub_uid:dh2&fq=-(collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.J.%3B%20Gibson%2C%20N.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.%20J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.%20J.%3B%20Gibson%2C%20N.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Griffin%2C%20E.A.%3B%20Keighery%2C%20B.J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%20B.J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Lamont%2C%20B.%3B%20Keighery%2C%20B.J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20M.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Stone%2C%20Farrell%2C%20Keighery%3B%20Banyard%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Brown%2C%20P.%3B%20Keighery%2C%20B.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Gibson%2C%20N.%3B%20Keighery%2C%20B.%20J.%22%20OR%20collector%3A%22Keighery%2C%20B.J.%3B%20O%20OR%20collector%3A%22O%20OR%20collector%3A%22Trudgen%2C%20M.E.%3B%20Keighery%2C%20B.J.%22)#tab_mapView
Note that I had to leave two non-Greg Keighery records in there because to exclude them, as well as all Greg's wife Bronwen's collections (that did not include Greg as co-collector) took 17 selections.
It has to be easier than all this. Let me know if this needs splitting into different issues.