SORTING discussion

[jodevelops]

_Discussion thread (all issues in here have been adressed in various other tickets or the discussion below, please see the references)_

• Sorting of results should default to author: This means, records are sorted by first: author (ascending), then: date (ascending?), then: title (ascending).
• All entries are first sorted alphabetically by AUTHOR (ascending a-z).
• Entries with no author should be listed at the end.
• Within one author (or within records without author), records are sorted by DATE within one authors' records from the same year (or within records without author from the same year), records should be sorted by TITLE.
• There should be a DROPDOWN for the user to re-sort by author OR date OR title.
• There should also be a switch to change descending/ascending order.
• There should also a dropdown to set the number of entries -e.g. 10, 20, 50, 100- that will be displayed.
• The position of the two should be next to the prev/ next page buttons (instead within the search box - optionally, the sort dropdown may -additionally- be kept there)

cf. #31 & #22.

original ticket: http://kjc-sv007.kjc.uni-heidelberg.de/helpdesk/scp/tickets.php?id=91

Create Date: 06/28/2013 5:55 pm Name: MA

[jodevelops]

• Sorting by author by default would significantly slow down display.

_Lucene_ search is now implemented more or less as it should, and there is a great advantage in using Google-like searches.

Creation Date: 09/14/2013 Name: JP

• Sort direction implemented for version 1.1.0, placing empties at the end.
• Sort direction is part of advanced search.
• For the simple search, an interface as minimal as possible should be adopted (I would even remove the sort drop-down) in order to create a Google-like interface, as demanded.
• Defaulting to author is fine for bibliographical records, but Tamboti will contain more and more format, and author will not be relevant for all of them.
• Recursive sorting will be very-very expensive, time-wise.

Creation Date: 09/16/2013 Name: JP

[jodevelops]

• I think Tamboti is a library catalog, not google.
• But we need to separate two things: sorting results of a user search - and the simple "opening" of a collection (or tamboti itself).
• Starting up tamboti or opening a collection is quasi "an empty search"
• applying a rating or ranking to entries without the user searching for something does not make sense and is not logical
• instead, entries should be sorted by one of the categories one would expect in a library catalog, e.g. agent, title, or date, thus - if one "starts up" tamboti by just opening the page and gets the cluster publications displayed, these should not be sorted by some score, but -in this case- by year or author.
• sorting the results of user searches is trickier. one COULD apply a ranking there
• if it is clear on what rules the ranking is made
• currently it is inapprehensible (and perhaps just a technical sorting) and thus the result seems unsorted. we should do everything possible to avoid users getting this impression.
• perhaps we will also need different ways to calculate scores when a result mainly consists of textual records (from matumi), or bibliographic records, or images.
• Data in our Tamboti will allways be close to a library catalog.
• the majority of records will be catalog records
• once larger sets of other types of data are available through/in tamboti we will need to discuss different ways of display for more diverse media.
• re-sorting results should NOT be part of the search but of the display of the result
• users should always be able to re-sort the displayed records, no matter if they are browsing, or were doing a simple or advanced search.

Creation Date: 09/17/2013 Name: MA

[jodevelops]

• Tamboti now allows searches in MODS, VRA and TEI records, as well as in extracted text. I am now adding search in Atom feeds and Wiki articles and we have decided to bring back search for video annotations - I can imagine search in HyperImage and authority files is next.
• This is not an ordinary library catalog - I think we should say that it is not a library catalog. It is true that there are more MODS records than records of other types, but - no matter what we call it - search and display still has to take into account all formats contained.
• As I wrote, I have now implemented "true" Lucene-based score ranking in Tamboti. Previously, the default search operator was "and" which ruined this. Now, it is "or" and if one uses "score", one gets a comprehensible relevancy ranking of the hits.
• I have boosted title, name and subject information.
• Perhaps we should actually display the score to make this sort option even clearer to the user? see: #87
• Relevancy is the default sort option in the library catalogues Tamboti models itself on, not name or year. I have also been bothered by the fact that relevancy "has no relevancy" when no search terms are supplied, but this is so to speak "a bug in a feature": nowhere else, as far as I know, can one list the contents of a collection in full, and it is only because we allow this that we have this "luxury" problem. Still, if it is explained that this does not make sense in terms of relevancy, I don't see a big problem here. The problem appears big because we by default open Tamboti in Cluster Publications, sorted according to a irrelevant sort option: if the user performs a search, making a choice of sort option, this is not so big a problem, I think.
• We could also have some mechanism whereby a certain collection is by default sorted in a certain way when there are no search terms supplied, but that will need a lot of coding - and it would overrule the user's input, which is not good form.
• The best solution, in my mind, would be to disable double-clicking and ask users who want to list a whole collection to enter an asterisk in the search field and choose the sort option they prefer.
• I think removing this default search will solve most of the problems here: the user should see a blank page upon opening Tamboti - where is there a library catalogue that "helps" the user in this way? - and do all searches actively.
• Users can re-sort displayed records by changing the sort criterion and re-searching. Are you thinking of something else?
• Which criteria would you use to sort VRA records according to what is now called "author" - and what would you call this sort option? Right now, sorting is done according to the first agent name - since this is "Paul, Priya" in all our records, this is of course not ideal.

Creation Date: 09/18/2013 Name: JP