Search Results

The advanced search page allows you to enter multiple terms in given fields. Options are available to select from a dropdown to narrow by (Keyword, Title, Start of Title, Author, Subject, ISBN/ISSN/UPC, Publisher, Series, Year of Publication, TOC, Record Number, Call Number).

Navigate to the Advanced Search page by switching the search parameter "by Keyword" to "Advanced Search."

Setting Up Advanced Search Fields

1. In Aspen Administration > Catalog / Grouped Works, click on Grouped Work Facets

2. Click on the settings to edit

3. On the Grouped Work Facets table, you will see any facets you have enabled. You can also add new facets from here.

4. To display a facet in Advanced Search, check the corresponding box in the "Show on Advanced Search" column.

Advanced Search Navigation

• The "Add Search Field" button may be used to add additional search fields to the form. You may use as many search fields as you wish.
• Search Groups - allow you to build searches from multiple groups of search fields. When you click the "Add Search Group" button, a new group of fields is added.

Advanced Searching Tips

Search Fields

When you first visit the Advanced Search page, you are presented with several search fields. In each field, you can type the keywords you want to search for. Search operators are allowed.

Each field is accompanied by a drop-down that lets you specify the type of data (title, author, etc.) you are searching for. You can mix and match search types however you like.

The "Match" setting lets you specify how multiple search fields should be handled.

• ALL Terms - Return only records that match every search field.
• ANY Terms - Return any records that match at least one search field.
• NO Terms -- Return all records EXCEPT those that match search fields.

The "Add Search Field" button may be used to add additional search fields to the form. You may use as many search fields as you wish.

Search Groups

For certain complex searches, a single set of search fields may not be enough. For example, suppose you want to find books about the history of China or India. If you did an ALL Terms search for China, India, and History, you would only get books about China AND India. If you did an ANY Terms search, you would get books about history that had nothing to do with China or India.

Search Groups provide a way to build searches from multiple groups of search fields. Every time you click the "Add Search Group" button, a new group of fields is added. Once you have multiple search groups, you can remove unwanted groups with the "Remove Search Group" button, and you can specify whether you want to match on ANY or ALL search groups.

In the history of China or India example described above, you could solve the problem using search groups like this:

• In the first search group, enter "India" and "China" and make sure that the "Match" setting is "ANY Terms."
• Add a second search group and enter "history."
• Make sure the match setting next to the Search Groups header is set to "ALL Groups."

Adding Advanced Search as a Menu Link

You can add Advanced Search as a Menu Link. See how to add menu links here.

Add this URL to go directly to Advanced Search:

/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=&searchIndex=advanced&searchSource=local

Adding Advanced Search Under the Search Bar

Some libraries have figured out custom code to add a hyperlink underneath their search box to go to Advanced Search.

Here is sample code to add to Aspen Administration > Local Catalog Enrichment > JavaScript Snippets that can be adjusted with your Aspen URL:

<script>
$('div#horizontal-search-box').append('<div><a id="advancedSearch" href="https://{YOURASPENURL}/Union/Search?view=list&showCovers=on&lookfor=&searchIndex=advanced&searchSource=local">Advanced Search</a></div>');
</script>

Here is sample code to add to Aspen Administration > Theme & Layout > Themes > Additional CSS:

#advancedSearch {
  color: white;
  margin-left: 55px;
}

This link displays under your search bar and may look best using the Full Width Header & Footer checkbox in Theme & Layout > Themes.

Boosting Search Relevancy

Aspen calculates search relevancy based on "boosting" numbers. The higher the boost, the higher the relevancy. Relevancy is based on a combination of settings and built-in code. Listed below are the various types of searches along with the "boosting" numbers for different search criteria. Aspen's code is also available to reference for a more in-depth look at how searching affects relevancy. Click here to learn more.

Keyword Searching Relevancy:

• Aspen will search all information in the MARC record except for text within fields below 010 and above 900.
• When using Keyword search, if the input exactly matches the title of a record, then that record will get a boost of 10000.
• If the search term matches the beginning of the title it will get a boost of 8000. As the title match is less exact, the relevancy will decrease accordingly.
• If the search in keyword exactly matches an author field, then we get a boost of 2000.
• If the search matches the beginning of the author, we get a boost of 1000 and if the search hits other parts of the author it does take that into account for relevancy but much smaller (from 50-200 depending on what parts of the author it hits)
• Aspen will also check to see if the input in the keyword search matches the barcode, issn, isbn, and call numbers and return those records.
• For the call number, Aspen will boost an exact match on call number with a boost of 400 and if the call number only matches the beginning it will boost it with a boost of 300.
• If the keyword input matches the series information, Aspen will boost the record if its series exactly matches with a boost of 1500. If it matches on part of a series name it will boost some, but less than an exact match (30-1500).
• Finally, Aspen will check to see if your keyword search term lives in the table of contents, subject, topic, geographic region, genre, era, keywords, description, target audience, and literary form (nonfiction/fiction).

Keyword Proper Searching Relevancy:

Turn a keyword search into a Keyword Proper search with quotation marks. For example, Aspen will follow the Keyword Search criteria if you do not have quotations around Harry Potter. When searching for "Harry Potter" (with quotation marks), the relevancy will follow these guidelines:

• If the quoted input exactly matches a title, it will have a boost of 2400.

• If the quoted input matches the beginning of a title, it will have a boost of 1600.

• If the quoted input exactly matches an author, it has a boost of 2200.

• If the quoted input matches the beginning of the author, it has a boost of 1000.

• If the quoted input matches the series of a title, it has a boost of 500.

• A proper keyword search will also look for the input in the table of contents, topics, geographic region, genre, keywords, ISSN, ISBN, UPC, OCLC number, call number, alternate IDs, and barcode.

Title Searching Relevancy:

• If the search term exactly matches a title, there is a boost of 10000.

• If the search term matches the beginning of the title, there is a boost of 8000.

• If the search matches parts of the title, it will be boosted from 50-800 depending on the level of match.

• If the search matches part of a series, it will boost from 50-800 depending on the level of match.

Title Proper Searching Relevancy:

Title Proper refers to a title search surrounded by quotation marks.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches a title, there is a boost of 2400.

• If the quoted search term matches the beginning of the title, there is a boost of 2400.

• If the search matches part of a series, it has a boot of 100.

Start of Title Searching Relevancy:

• If the search term exactly matches the beginning of a title, there is a boost of 1600.

Series Searching Relevancy:

• If the search term exactly matches the series, there is a boost of 2400.

• If the search term matches on some of the series information, there is a boost of 50-1000 depending on the level of the match.

Series Proper Searching Relevancy:

Series Proper refers to a series search surrounded by quotation marks.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches the series, there is a boost of 2400.

• If the quoted search term matches on some of the series information, there is a boost of 500-1000 depending on the level of the match.

Author Searching Relevancy:

When searching by Author, if the input exactly matches a record's author it will have a boost of 2200, regardless of if it is surrounded by quotations. If the author matches the beginning of the author, it will have a boost of 1400.

Subject Searching Relevancy:

• If the search term exactly matches the subject, there is a boost of 300.

• If the search term exactly matches the topic, there is a boost of 300.

• If the search term exactly matches the geographic region, there is a boost of 300.

• If the search term exactly matches the genre, there is a boost of 300.

• If the search term exactly matches the era, there is a boost of 300.

Subject Proper Searching Relevancy:

Subject Proper refers to a Subject search surrounded by quotation marks.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches the subject, there is a boost of 300.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches the topic, there is a boost of 300.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches the geographic region, there is a boost of 300.

• If the quoted search term exactly matches the genre, there is a boost of 300.

• If the quoted search term matches part of the subject, topic, geographic region, genre, or era there is a boost of 100.

Checkouts and the Effect on Relevancy:

Aspen Discovery also considers the number of checkouts on items and titles. As patrons use a title more, Aspen Discovery will increase the relevancy of that title. The system does this because most likely if a title is very popular and checked out often, it's a title other patrons are more likely to expect in their results.

In addition to the ways Aspen Discovery decides relevancy and boosting, we also have the ability to certain boost formats even further. Note that these boosts are applied per bibliographic record in a grouped work. If you own multiple editions of a title or multiple formats of a title in the same grouped work, the boosts are added together and the title receives an even higher boost.

1. Navigate to Aspen Administration > ILS Integration > Indexing Profiles.

2. Click on Format Information within the ILS Indexing Profile.

 

3. Scroll to the Format Map.

 

4. Under Format Boost, adjust the level of boost. Note that a boost of "None" is the default, and leaving a boost at "None" or setting it to "Low" does not de-boost a format lower than it would be through Aspen's default relevancy calculations. Rather, you are only selecting the level of additional boost on top of standard relevancy formulas. 

• None 
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Very High

Number of Holdings:

In the Catalog / Grouped Works section of the administration menu, if you click into the specific ‘Grouped Work Display’ settings there is a checkbox option that says 'Apply Number Of Holdings Boost'. This setting adds boosting or relevancy to title records that have a lot of items attached. The thought here is that you are most likely buying a lot of copies of popular titles but maybe not as many of the unpopular titles. If a title record has 20 items attached it may show higher in search results than a title with one item attached.

We suggest to turn on as a default.

Click on Aspen Administration > Catalog/Grouped Works > Grouped Work Display

Click into your Group Work Display settings

Check Apply Number Of Holdings Boost

There is not currently a way to boost by content provider (Example: ILS vs. OverDrive vs. Hoopla vs. side load).

Hoopla Default Boostings

Searching

The default search in Aspen is set to "by Keyword" and "in Library Catalog". The majority of users will search this way and find what they need. But, there are other searching options available if needed.

Users can search:

• By Keyword
• By Title
• By Start of Title
• By Series
• By Author
• By Subject
• via Advanced Search

Depending on the modules you have turned on, users can search other areas of Aspen

Search areas include:

• in Online Collection (a search of only your econtent)
• in Articles & Databases
• in Events (if you have an integration with LibCal or Library Market)
• in Lists (searchable lists made by staff and NYT lists via API if turned on)
• in Library Website (any indexed pages or web builder pages)
• in History and Archives (integrated collections with OAI-PMH)
• in Genealogy Records (Aspen's Genealogy module)
• in Combined Results (a "bento-box" style results display)

By default, search results will be set to Sort by "Best Match". This is based on Aspen's relevancy algorithm. 

Other sort by areas include:

• Publication Year Desc
• Publication Year Asc
• Author
• Title
• Date Purchased Desc
• Call Number
• Total Checkouts
• User Rating
• Number of Holds

Note: The goal of Aspen Discovery is to reduce the need for 'advanced' search techniques that may be less accessible to typical library users. The search operators described below may no longer work, or not work in all cases.

Search Operators

Phrase Searches ("")

To perform a phrase search wrap the entire search phrase in quotes.

By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling the system to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change.

Wildcard Searches

To perform a single character wildcard search use the ? symbol.

For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:

te?t

To perform a multiple character, 0 or more, wildcard search use the * symbol.

For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:

test*

You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

te*t

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Range Searches

To perform a range search you can use the { } characters. For example to search for a term that starts with either A, B, or C:

{A TO C}

The same can be done with numeric fields such as the Year:

[2002 TO 2003]

Boosting a Term

To apply more value to a term, you can use the ^ character. For example, you can try the following search:

economics Keynes^5

Which will give more value to the term "Keynes"

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined with logic operators. The following operators are allowed: AND, +, OR, NOT and -.

AND, OR and NOT get processed as boolean operators in all searches unless the term is surrounded in quotes.

Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS

OR

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching record if either of the terms exist in a record.

To search for documents that contain either "economics Keynes" or just "Keynes" use the query:

"economics Keynes" Keynes

or

"economics Keynes" OR Keynes

AND

The AND operator matches records where both terms exist anywhere in the field of a record.

To search for records that contain "economics" and "Keynes" use the query:

"economics" AND "Keynes"

+

The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in the field of a record.

To search for records that must contain "economics" and may contain "Keynes" use the query:

+economics Keynes

NOT

The NOT operator excludes records that contain the term after NOT.

To search for documents that contain "economics" but not "Keynes" use the query:

"economics" NOT "Keynes"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT "economics"

-

The - or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "economics" but not "Keynes" use the query:

"economics" -"Keynes"

Updated 2023/01/20 - md bws

Aspen doesn't exclude stop words/articles (example: "it" or "the") by default because of books like It and The Help. These words can also help relevancy if someone types "The Shining" instead of "Shining."

However, if someone has a long search term (>= 5 words), Aspen will selectively remove words to help make sure they get good results if they just don't remember part of a search term properly. (Example: searching for "the five people you meet in heaven" and "five people you meet at heaven" would typically return the same results)

Updated 2023/01/20 - md bws

In Aspen Administration > ILS Integration > Indexing Profiles > MARC 0XX and 9XX Fields to Index as Keyword, you can define custom MARC 0XX and 9XX Fields to be included in the keyword index.

This is a series of MARC tags (3 chars identifying a marc field, e.g., 099), optionally followed by characters identifying which subfields to use.

Separator of colon indicates a separate value, rather than concatenation (e.g., 901a:902ab is different than 901a:902a:902b).

• 008[5-7] denotes bytes 5-7 of the 008 field (0 based counting)
• 100[a-cf-z] denotes the bracket pattern is a regular expression indicating which subfields to include.
  • Note: if the characters in the brackets are digits, it will be interpreted as particular bytes, NOT a pattern.
• 100abcd denotes subfields a, b, c, d are desired. MARC tags 100-899 are automatically included in the keyword index.

Once you save and an overnight index is run, you can now search the terms stored in these fields. 

Availability Toggles

There are four possible availability toggles. By default, they are Entire Collection, Local Collection, Available Now, and Available Online.

The default configuration and definitions are as follows:

Entire Collection = Owned physical materials and eContent from all included locations.

Local Collection = Physical materials that are owned by that library only. Not applicable for single libraries or library systems sharing one Aspen catalog.

Available Now = Physical materials plus eContent materials that are available now. 

Available Online = eContent that is available now

Scroll down to Customizing Availability Toggles to learn how to adjust these for your library's needs.

Enabling Availability Toggles

The availability toggles are typically enabled for you by default in your facet settings. If creating a new facet setting from scratch, you'll need to add the corresponding facet to your facet settings in order to see the availability toggles. This can be configured in Aspen Administration > Catalog/Grouped Works > Grouped Work Facets. 

More Information About Facets

The Availability toggles will be turned on when the facet "Available?" is added to the facet chart, given a display name, and both "Show Above Results" and "Show on Results Page" are checked.

Customizing Availability Toggles

Once the toggles are turned on, you can customize them.

Go to Aspen Administration > Catalog/Grouped Works > Grouped Work Display Settings > Search Facets

• Entire Collection Toggle Label - This would be set up if you had multiple branches or a consortium and you wanted to show total available across all shared records.
  • Note: If you have this filled in for a single branch, the Entire Collection Toggle and the Local Collection Toggle would be the same. You probably want to delete one for the sake of redundancy.

• Local Collection Toggle Label - Total availablity for all items at a specific library location. In a consortium with scoped catalogs, this would be availability at that individual library.
  • Note: The default {display name} will pull from the Display Name in Primary Configuration > Library Systems
  • 

• Available on Shelf - All items available now. In a consortium with scoped catalogs, this would be availability at that individual library. If you select "Include Online Materials in Available Toggle" below, this will include available physical and econtent materials. If it is unclicked, it will not contain econtent.

• Available Online - All online items available now. In a consortium with scoped catalogs, this would be availability of any eresources the patron could access. 

• Default Toggle - This is the toggle your results will default to. In most cases this would be the Entire Collection or Local Collection toggle. The toggle will be highlighted in a different color than the other toggles. 

• Base Available Toggle on Local Holdings Only - With systems with multiple locations, you can limit availability to just the location's holdings

• Include Online Materials in Available Toggle - Turn on to include online materials in both the Available Now and Available Online Toggles.

What are format icons?

Format icons appear at the top of search results and represent group of like formats.

How do I control what formats are sorted into what icon?

Formats are primarily sorted into format icons from the Format Map found in Aspen Administration > ILS Integration > Indexing Profiles > Format Map > Format Category. 

The predefined Format Categories are:

• Books
• eBook
• Audio Books
• Music
• Movies
• Other (not represented with an icon)

These icons correspond to the grouped work formats in your collection(s) and multiple item types can make up one grouped work format icons.

For example:

• Books would contain formats such as Large Print, Board Books, and New Books.
• eBook would contain formats such as ebook and eaudio from Hoopla, CloudLibrary, OverDrive, and Kindle.
• Music would formats such as music CDs and eaudio. Movies would contain emovies, DVDs, VHS, BluRay.

These format grouping categories are set in Aspen Administration > ILS Integration > ILS Indexing Information > Format Information > Format Map > Format Category.

How are they turned ON/OFF?

Format icons are ON by default. 

If you want format icons to be completely hidden (rare cases), go to Aspen Administration > Catalog/Grouped Works > Grouped Work Facets > find the Format Category facet and uncheck Show Above Results > save.

Can I customize the icons?

Currently, the 5 default icons are the only options.

There are no theme-related settings to the appearance of the icons but some libraries have updated them with custom icons using CSS.

Can I translate what the icons say?

Yes, you can easily enter into Translation Mode and adjust the format icons.

Some libraries have adjusted the eBook format icon to say "eBook + eAudiobook" or Movies to say "TV + Movies" for example.

One of the search options you can enable is the "in Online Collection" search. This allows users to search only your econtent.

To turn this on, go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Library Systems > Searching > Search Box > check Repeat in Online Collection. The box should immediately appear as a dropdown option.

Combined Results is one area of Aspen Discovery that you can choose to turn on for users to search within. You can decide what areas of Aspen you want to show in Combined Results.

Setting Up Combined Results

 

2. Select your Library System.

 

3. Scroll down and expand the Combined Results section.

 

4. Check Enable Combined Results to turn Combined Results on

5. In "Combined Results Label," you can change the name of Combined Results to something else.

Clicking on "Default to Combined Results" will set Combined Results as the default search for your library catalog instead of "in Catalog". This is generally not recommended, but we do have a few research libraries that have opted for this display.

 

6. Click on Add New to start creating fields.

7. Set a Display Name, Num of Results, and the Source for each section. This will create your Combined Results page.

Num Results is how many results will show to the user before having to click on "Full Results" and/or "See All Results". Simply click and drag the sections to reorder how the sections will display on the Combined Results page.

If you have created Pages with the Aspen Web Builder module and you want them to be searchable, go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Library Systems > click into the library > scroll to the bottom > check Allow searching locally created web content.

Note: Once you click this, the in Library Website option will appear, regardless if there are pages available to be search at that time. Typically, you would want to create pages first and then turn this on.

Note: Once you click this, the in Library Website option will appear, regardless if there are pages available to be search at that time. Typically, you would want to create pages first and then turn this on.

To enable all of Aspen's search assistance functions, go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Library Systems > Searching > Allow Automatic Search Corrections

When a user performs a search and there are no results or only a few results returned, Aspen will show Similar Searches and Spelling Suggestions.

By clicking on any of these options, the user will be taken to a keyword search of that word or phrase.

When users begin a search in the search box, Aspen will begin showing predictive suggestions.

These predictive suggestions are based off the metadata in the library's collections. 

NOTE: Allow Automatic Search Corrections must be enabled before this assistive search function will work in Aspen.

In this example, I missed a keystroke and meant to search "spring" but instead typed "sprinh".

Aspen automatically switches this search to "springs" and displays a message:

Showing Results for springs

Search instead for sprinh 

If you were to click on "sprinh" instead, then it will take the user to Similar Searches and Spelling Suggestions.

In a consortial catalog, if the Availabilty Toggle defaults to the library's owned collection and no results are returned, Aspen will display a message that there is nothing available locally but there are matches elsewhere. 

When the user clicks "Search all libraries", this will redirect them to search within the "All Libraries/Entire Collection" toggle instead.

NOTE: Allow Automatic Search Corrections must be enabled before this assistive search function will work in Aspen.

If a user performs a non-keyword search (i.e. Author, Series, Start of Title, Subject, or Title) and no results are found, Aspen will redirect the user to a keyword search.

In this example, the user searched "geyers" by Series. 

Aspen found no series matching "geysers" so it switched the search automatically to a keyword search.

It displays a message:

Showing results using Keyword index

Search instead using Series index

If the user clicked on Search instead using Series index, they would be taken out to a No "Series" Results Found page.