Tip of the Week

Tip for: 02.17.03

The Browse and Find commands

There are several different ways of locating an item from the Circulation and Item windows.  One of the most obvious is scanning the barcode to bring it up in the current item field of the Circulation window.  However, you can also use the T command to search for an item by title.  This command brings up a Browse window and lists the titles alphabetically.  This same window can be brought up from the Item window using the Browse command.  One thing to be aware of is that when using these Browse options, the titles are sorted how they are indexed so that a, an, and the are ignored.  However, when typing in a title using these two options, it is important to leave off the article when necessary.

In designing these features, it was determined that there needed to be an easy way to find titles such as A is for apple or A B C, where the "a" in this case should not be ignored.  It was decided that because these features would only be used by the librarian, who knows which titles have articles to be ignored and which do not, that these two browse options would not be programmed to strip off the articles. This means that if I am doing a browse for a title such as The red badge of courage,  I would type, T red badge of courage, leaving off the "the".

On the other hand, when doing a Find from the Item window, there is no need to leave off the article.  The Find command has been designed to strip off the article.  The searches from the Search window have also been designed to automatically strip the articles when a patron does a search.  That way, there is no need to worry whether a patron knows about articles being ignored when a title is indexed.

We realize that this has caused some confusion for some of our librarians and hope that this explanation has helped to clarify the reasoning for this design in the Alexandria program.

To browse from Circulation:

In the command line type T and then the title to search for, leaving  off any articles. (The command is not case sensitive so you can type t also.)

A Browse window will appear with the closest match highlighted.

With the title you are looking for selected, either click on the Select button or double-click on the title.

If the article was left on and so the title is not visible, retype the title in the white field next to the Go button.

Click Go and then follow the same steps above for selecting the correct title.

To browse from Items:

Select Items, from the Show menu.

With the Item window open, click on the Items drop-down menu and choose Browse.

Type in the title to browse for and click Go.

With the title you are looking for highlighted, either click on the Select button or double-click on the title.

The item record of the title you were searching for will then be available to unlock and view or modify.

** Remember to not type the articles on titles where they should be ignored when using these two browse options.

To find an item:

Select Items, from the Show menu.

With the Item window open, click on the Items drop-down menu and choose Find.

Make sure that the first drop-down is set to the correct index to search from (i.e. Title, if searching for a title, etc.)

Type in the information to find in the white field.

Click on the Find button.

The closest match to what was typed in will become the current item to unlock and view or modify.

Thank You
The Alexandria Staff Librarians