Feedback on the Books search
I do not use the Books search anymore because the relevancy of the search results is abysmal. I revert to the Worldcat catalog to see if FamilySearch has the book or the old Catalog search.
The latest example of failed searches using the Books search function:
"Margaret Matthews Cowart" with and without quotations
"Old land records of Limestone County, Alabama" with and without quotations
Creator.title:cowart Title:margaret - which I should not have to go to a help page to figure out how to search for an author. There should a drop down selector for that.
Limestone County, Alabama
None of the search results were relevant to my search query. If the proper results were returned, they were buried. Going through the facets is equally as difficult. Searching for the author in quotes should have brought it up right at the top, but it didn't. Even using the Advanced search on the search results page returns improper results. Based on my searches, either the book is not included in Books or is simply buried by irrelevant results - it is hard to know.
Finally, I went to Worldcat and found the book I wanted. Found that FamilySearch DOES have the book. Clicking on the link takes me to the Koha library page. It does not tell me if the book has been digitized and available for viewing online or in print. So it is back to the Books search to see if I can find it. It should not take me an hour of searching to find this book in the Books search. Is there a disconnect between what is in the "Books" versus what is in the "Library". I am not sure I understand the separation or reasoning behind this.
I could find the book in 5 seconds using the Catalog.
I am a librarian and have worked with proper library catalog records using catalogs with either Zebra or ElasticSearch. Both indexing systems will return relevant search results. I can't really tell what the Books search is doing other than random keyword searches. Without the ability to tell the system what to search or how to search, the results will always be random and irrelevant. This could be tremendously improved for better user experience.
Answers
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I am not connected with FamilySearch
If you are talking about the function Search (from the menu at the top of the FamilySearch webpage), then selecting Books, this is the Search for books in the FamilySearch Digital Library. The digital library search must be the worst Search for any digital library I have used.
If you look at the catalog entries, you will see that the date of publication is not recorded, unless it is there as part of the title. What other catalog lacks date of publication?
I have commented on the Search and other features in posts dating back to 2019 such as
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/83579/request-for-improvements-to-the-familysearch-digital-library and https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/88517/#Comment_88517
FamilySearch seems to have done virtually nothing in this time to improve the FamilySearch Digital Library . I can only conclude the Digital Library is at the very bottom in terms of FamilySearch priorities. You could try writing directly to the Digital library DigitalLibrary@familysearch.org but based on my experience I don't believe you will have any notice taken of your concerns.
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Yes, it seems as though the normal search queries for author/contributor, subjects are largely treated as general keywords. The records themselves are not properly cataloged, which makes searching them nearly impossible. The search is being treated like Google search, which is not nearly as useful as you would think. Author/contributor and subject tags should have authority records that link so that catalog items are appropriately grouped.
I don't know if FamilySearch has a proper cataloger, but they need one. I don't know what the underlying structure is for Books, but it is lacking. I remember asking James Tanner about it and he said it was a custom solution.
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@melanes This wiki article might help you better find books in the FamilySearch Digital Library: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Searching_the_FamilySearch_Digital_Library
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