Enhance searching by ISBN and ISSN (with or without hyphens)

[eporter23]

Originally submitted by Jenny Vitti via library search feedback LISTSERV on Jan 19, 2022.

Is your feature request related to new functionality not yet included in the product? Please describe. A clear and concise description of what the new feature will provide.

• Make it easier for users to search for these standard numbers whether they include the hyphens or not.

Is your feature request related to a problem or a change to existing functionality? Please describe. A clear and concise description of what the problem is. Ex. It is very difficult to [...] because [...]

• It is difficult for users to search by ISBN especially because publishers and other websites such as Amazon often do not use the required punctuation formatting. If a user copies and pastes an ISBN from Amazon into Library Search, our catalog data may not find a match due to differences in punctuation or spacing.

Describe the solution you'd like A clear and concise description of what you want to happen.

• A user should be able to enter the numbers of an ISSN or ISBN and find exact matches, whether they have entered the hyphens or not
• An ISBN copied from Amazon or a publisher site should find exact matches in the catalog if we hold the material

Describe alternatives you've considered A clear and concise description of any alternative solutions or workarounds you've considered.

• Other institutions and products seem to achieve this

How will this impact users? A clear and concise description of how many and which types of users would benefit from this feature, or any who may be negatively impacted by the change.

• Library staff will benefit, especially ILL
• Users copying and pasting ISBNs from other sites will benefit

Additional context Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

• Original email: "I've noticed that when I perform a keyword search for an ISSN that's formatted without the hyphen in the middle, I get no results, but when I add the hyphen there are results. The same thing happens with Advanced Search > All Fields and > Identifiers. Examples: search 09365214 and 0936-5214, or 02757206 and 0275-7206. The opposite problem is happening for ISBNs. If I use Amazon's or the publishing industry's ISBN formatting (hyphen after the third digit, or 3-4 hypens throughout the ISBN), I get no results, but if I remove the hyphen(s) I get results. Example: 978-3110579314 and 9783110579314, or 978-90-04-44363-1 and 9789004443631. Therefore, anyone who is searching by ISBN or ISSN copied from the web with hyphens that differ from our catalog are unable to find results. Thanks for investigating! (I used the Ares addon to check the old discoverE, and searching with or without the hyphen/s returns the expected results there.)"

[eporter23]

This is currently in prototype stage (researching solutions implemented by other institutions) but will require testing in SOLR and may require moderate effort from Middleware and Software Development as well as a production downtime.