batch searching

[Jason Etheridge]

Thomas wrote: "I would like to see the possibility for batch searching, i.e. taking a list of titles or authors or whatever from a excel spreadsheet or csv file or something and spitting out a report on the holdings.  This would only be for the advanced/librarian user."

It certainly sounds like a good idea to me. You can almost get there by using a file of item barcodes and importing them into a record bucket, and reporting on the bucket. I think we need other ways of populating record buckets, say, with a file of ISBN numbers, search terms, etc. Combine that with bucket entry notes, which exist in trunk, and that'd be very nice.

[Elizabeth Thomsen (et-8)]

Are we seeing this as only something that staff would be able to do? I'd like to see patrons have the ability to upload a batch of ISBNs into a List. Social sites like GoodReads and Google Books offer this service to their users, and I think some of our users would appreciate having this in the library catalog.

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

This could be very helpful in an academic environment, both for patrons and staff. Student patrons could upload a list of textbook titles to see which are held by the Library. Staff could use this for collection development purposes, and for checking to see if any textbooks are already available through the Library as ebooks (saving students $$$).

Right now, we have round-about and time-intensive procedures for all of the above.

[Elizabeth Thomsen (et-8)]

I can confirm that nothing like this currently exists, and it seems like a very useful feature to me.

[Elizabeth Thomsen (et-8)]

This would be a very useful enhancement with many uses for both library staff and patrons. Both may have lists of ISBNs (or other standard data) from various sources, and which could be uploaded as a batch and searched to identify which the library currently owns, or used to create a My List of recommended reading, etc.

Sites like Google Books and GoodReads have offered the ability to upload and search ISBNs for years, and it would be great if Evergreen could do the same.

I'm attaching screenshots showing this feature on Google Books and Goodreads for inspiration.

[Jennifer Weston (jweston)]

+1 love this idea!

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

+1 we get requests for this

[Elizabeth Thomsen (et-8)]

Just confirming that this is popular idea is still valid, and would be very useful enhancement for both library staff and patrons!

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

Looking into this feature request.
The workflow for the desired feature seems to be:
Item Status, Browse, pick text file, let it load, then Actions > Transfer to bucket

and the requested feature is that the text file can have ISBN.

Observations: looking up by ISBN is currently possible in the opac, Advanced Search > Numeric Search, where ISBN is the default, so I'll be looking at the numeric search components in the eg src and seeing how to adapt that code to the Item Status components.

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

The src to edit should be the retrieveCopyData service in
Open-ILS/web/js/ui/default/staff/circ/services/item.js

Would write a new function to lookup isbn as barcode, then use that function in the existing conditional for the case that copy promise doesn't resolve.

Researching if src code for staff catalog numeric search by isbn can be applied to item status.

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

Yesterday I found Open-ILS/web/js/ui/default/staff/circ/services/item.js
and how it begins the process of lookup by library item barcode.

Today I found the source of the method that item.js uses,
.../ui/default/staff/services/pcrud.js

So now I'm learning the fieldmapper to see if the pcrud method can search by
isbn instead of trying to "port" the opac numeric search.

Were there any takers for the newdevs fieldmapper wiki in the 1-17-24 newdevs
meeting? If not then I'll take on maintenance of that page on since i'm going
to be reading it nowadays.

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

As it stands, pcrud.search by barcode, using the field mapper class acp,
obtains the copy data needed for Item Status display.

There is no field mapper class that includes all of the acp data plus isbn,
and getting the acp data is a must.

So, given isbn, do 2 additional pcrud searches:
1st, by isbn, fm class rmsr, to obtain tcn_value;
2nd, by tcn_value, fm class rocit, to obtain barcode.
And then with that barcode you can do your acp pcrud to get back on track.

I'll be working on a rough draft to fit the additional searches into the copy
retrieval logic.

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

Next week:

back to the drawing board since there may be multiple copies of the same edition/isbn. And the original feature request wanted to be able to input a broad set of types of information, not just ISBN but title or author too.

The real challenge to add this feature is to give Item Status's existing batch input system the power of an opac keyword search!

[Timothy Means (tmeans-ncc)]

Record Buckets has a Record Query form which can search by ISBN, Title, Author, even keywords, but just one at a time.

Shifting solution from broadening Item Status search input to giving Record Buckets Query a File Picker and multiple query response