1ArlieS
I'd really like to know how search works - in particular, the basic search box I see in the upper right, below the "search library thing" box, in the "your books" screen. e.g. https://www.librarything.com/catalog/ArlieS?&deepsearch=tierra
I'm using this search as a quick check for whether or not I've previously catalogued a particular book.
What fields are examined? (I have "all fields" selected", but what does that actually mean? Does it include fields associated with both the work and the book? Fields from other books associated with the work - will it e.g. match the german title of a book which I own only in english? other people's comments?)
Can I use quotation marks, e.g. to request that a whole phrase be matched? (AFAICT, the answer to that is no, quotes have no effect...)
Is there a help page that explains all this?
And why do I have 10 matches for the string tierra, none of which use that string in any of the fields I can actually see on this page (using my style A, which is probably the default style A)?
FWIW, it looks like I'd be better served for my purposes by switching to titles/authors only - far fewer confusing matches.
But my curiosity is aroused now...
I'm using this search as a quick check for whether or not I've previously catalogued a particular book.
What fields are examined? (I have "all fields" selected", but what does that actually mean? Does it include fields associated with both the work and the book? Fields from other books associated with the work - will it e.g. match the german title of a book which I own only in english? other people's comments?)
Can I use quotation marks, e.g. to request that a whole phrase be matched? (AFAICT, the answer to that is no, quotes have no effect...)
Is there a help page that explains all this?
And why do I have 10 matches for the string tierra, none of which use that string in any of the fields I can actually see on this page (using my style A, which is probably the default style A)?
FWIW, it looks like I'd be better served for my purposes by switching to titles/authors only - far fewer confusing matches.
But my curiosity is aroused now...
2lilithcat
>1 ArlieS:
The help page is here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/%22Your_books%22_Search
It explains what is searched with "all fields" and "most fields". All the search choices search within your catalogue. If I use "all" or "most" fields and search for Art Institute of Chicago, it will bring up books that the AIOC has published, books I bought there (the "from where" field), books with "Art Institute of Chicago" in the title, and books where it is listed as the author.
The help page is here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/%22Your_books%22_Search
It explains what is searched with "all fields" and "most fields". All the search choices search within your catalogue. If I use "all" or "most" fields and search for Art Institute of Chicago, it will bring up books that the AIOC has published, books I bought there (the "from where" field), books with "Art Institute of Chicago" in the title, and books where it is listed as the author.
3ArlieS
>2 lilithcat: Interesting. I don't think the quotation marks are working as described - adding quotes to a phrase that produced too many results doesn't seem to reduce the number of results I get. I.e. it seems as if "art history" behaves like art history or art AND history.
But that's using "all fields," which means I'm not sure what phrases are actually present *somewhere*. Or I might have got surprises from stemming, or even used a phrase containing and or or.
I'll keep an eye out for actual examples. I commonly just type some phrase from a book's title, without quotes, and only add the quotes if I get too many unreasonable results. So this is an experiment I'll be doing regularly.
If I see this again, using something other than "all fields", I'll report the details in the bugs forum. (No point reporting anything for "all fields" - I don't know of a way to see all those fields conveniently, to check whether the target is actually present in some obscure text field.)
But that's using "all fields," which means I'm not sure what phrases are actually present *somewhere*. Or I might have got surprises from stemming, or even used a phrase containing and or or.
I'll keep an eye out for actual examples. I commonly just type some phrase from a book's title, without quotes, and only add the quotes if I get too many unreasonable results. So this is an experiment I'll be doing regularly.
If I see this again, using something other than "all fields", I'll report the details in the bugs forum. (No point reporting anything for "all fields" - I don't know of a way to see all those fields conveniently, to check whether the target is actually present in some obscure text field.)
4MarthaJeanne
All fields is probably searching all the editions. In Clan of the Cave Bear I found tierra in several Spanish titles.
5Petroglyph
Yeah: several of my weird search results come from extraneous information that people put in their title field (reviews, author nationalities and so on).
Your Tolkien books show up in a search for tierra because they are part of the Spanish-language Series Tierra Media.
Your Tolkien books show up in a search for tierra because they are part of the Spanish-language Series Tierra Media.
6ArlieS
>5 Petroglyph: So "all fields" may just be including the series field, which makes sense, rather than fields of other books associated with the same work.
The programmer in me suggests that searching all the books of a work would be computationally expensive, and probably more difficult to program, so unlikely to be what the LibraryThing developers implemented.
The programmer in me suggests that searching all the books of a work would be computationally expensive, and probably more difficult to program, so unlikely to be what the LibraryThing developers implemented.
