FS Digital Library. Searching within the Digital Library

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: I have been searching for book TITLES within the FS Digital Library.

Firstly I note there is no Advanced Search, so I can't specifically search for a title.

I am familiar with a number of digital libraries, and virtually all, if not all, have an advanced search. I think FamilySearch should include this feature. For an example of an Advanced Search, see the Internet Archive homepage https://archive.org

Secondly when looking at the Search results it is most difficult to realise what is there because the Digital Library books details don't display a date. I have written about this separately in another post "FamilySearch Digital Library: Major Cataloging problem - No date of publication shown" February 19, 2019
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

Thirdly, the results displayed include the same book file multiple times.

For example, I tried searching for the book title "A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage" . I included the quotation marks in the hope that this would locate books with this title. Because there is no advanced search I could not otherwise search just for this title.

I then refined the Search by selecting Access level Public.

There were 39 results. If I look closely at the identifier number, I can see that three of the results were for the same book Identifier 2567848. However, as I wasn't expecting duplicate entries, I didn't think to look for this, and as I was trying to find out what editions were available, I had to open up the book files to see inside for the the date of publication.

I can only say this is not a good user experience. It seems to me such a waste to have books available but make it such a hassle to find things.

LegacyUser

JT said: Right. While it's good to see they are finally rolling out some updates to the Book searching section, I too was not impressed with my search options and results.

My background story:

Back on 30 Aug 2018 I brought a newly acquired Book of Remembrance written in 1940 in Ogden UT (that had recently made its way to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, and back to Logan UT) to the FamilySearch book scanning center at 2370 So. 2700 W., West Valley City UT. The book was named "Book of Remembrance of David D. and Cedy (Davies) Davis". By 18 Sep 2018 they had it scanned into TIFF files (one file per page), and gave me the files (via USB thumb drive) and the book back.

They said the files were being forwarded to another FamilySearch scanning center in Orem UT who would not only do the OCR conversion to a single PDF, but they would also upload it into the FamilySearch online Books section in a matter of weeks. So after months went by without it showing up via my weekly test of the Books section search, I heard that FamilySearch was redesigning their online Books search section and figured that was the cause for the delay.

But even with the new search UI rolled out just the other day, my Davis Book of Remembrance still doesn't show up online yet (or at least not found via their new search options). Note: a copy of the book has been on Microfilm for years (but only physically at the SLC FS FHL). See its info at https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...

So I have decided to just do my own OCR conversion from my 128 TIFF (.tif) files and put it on my own website.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: Two comments by Sarah W, seen at the bottom of the blog RootsTech 2019 FamilySearch Updates February 19, 2019
https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/....

"February 25, 2019 at 1:11 am
Please add back advanced searching features within books. It is much more difficult now to get a more exact search.

Also, please add a third option of no image so that we can go through the search items faster — no image would crunch down the text into less space, being able to see more results faster.

February 25, 2019 at 1:15 am
Also, the abstracts are now missing from the book descriptions, which is extremely important to have available to know more about the title. Can that be added back in?"

There have been two recent posts about searching within the FS Digital Library
"Stupid book research system" March 05, 2019 17:56
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

"Books - advanced search capabilities needed" March 05, 2019 18:19
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

Is FamilySearch even reading our comments, as there has been no response what so ever.

I have also written the following posts to which there has been no FamilySearch response. I cannot see any changes, even in response to the last one which is obviously due to a programming problem.

"New format for digitised Books. FamilySearch Digital Library"
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

"FamilySearch Digital Library: Major Cataloging problem - No date of publication shown".
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

"FamilySearch Digital Library catalog entries. No provision to report an Error as available in (general) Catalog"
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

"FS Digital Library book reader. Show bookmarks function" February 22, 2019 23:19
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

LegacyUser

JT said: I talked to the FamilySearch Book-Scanning people at their booth at Rootstech. They said my submission got caught within mere days of when they put the halt on any new submissions. It probably happened just as my submission was going thru the final processing steps in Orem.

They said they are waiting to see how the new User Interface works out its bugs, before they start opening the flood gates of new submissions. But mine should be near the front of the queue, although their person at the booth said my submission had some kind of strange hold flag on it, so she cleared the flag and put some priority on it.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: I was searching to see if a book title "Who Was Who" is available in the FamilySearch Digital Library.

I used that as a Search term had got 2490 Results

I tried to use the Sort by box at the top of the results list, using Sort by Date (ascending) and Sort by Date (descending) and got the reply
"Sorry, but nothing matched your search terms"
Probably this is because the date of publication does not appear to be captured anyone. I believe I have mentioned this problem before.

At this point I gave up. I do not have the inclination to look through 2490 Search Results.

I think the FamilySearch Digital Library is almost useless in its present state, If there have been any improvements made since my posts above, I have not come across them

LegacyUser

Juli said: I agree that the Books section is completely useless in its current state. Unless the Catalog has a direct link to a digital book, it is totally impossible to find what you need.

LegacyUser

JT said: True. I just searched for "David D Davis Cedy Davies Book of Remembrance" and got 364154 results. Used to be none.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: I notice there was a blog posted April 5, 2019
Is Your Family in the Updated Digital Library?
https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/...
in which it says
"Filterable search results to help you focus quickly on the most relevant books".

I would be interested to know what these filters are, as I cannot see that there have been any recent changes to the filters available. It is still not possible to use the "Sort by Date" function.

The comments at the bottom of the blog include a comment April 8, 2019 by Jason who said "We are working on an advanced search screen. In the mean time, try putting quotes around a name: “James Richardson”. For author, try: Creator.title:richardson (case-sensitive on “Creator.title”). For specific last names, use: Subject:richardson (“Subject” is case sensitive, but the names are not). For the title of the book, use: Title:richardson (“Title” is case sensitive). To get really advanced, use AND and OR, case sensitive: Title:richardson AND Creator.title:smith. We have lots more coming to help with better searching!"

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: BUG :
When you search in the Digital Library there is a box at the top of the Search results where you are given the option of sorting by Date (ascending) and by Date (descending). If you select these options you get "Sorry, but nothing matched your search terms"

I believe that this is likely due to the fact that DATE OF PUBLICATION has not been captured as part of the metadata.
See the topic FamilySearch Digital Library: Major Cataloging problem - No date of publication shown
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

REQUEST: Capture the date of publication and DISPLAY it on the Search results, and enable the Search results to be ordered by date of publication.

LegacyUser

Melanes said: The search results for a keyword style search are greatly lacking without the ability to properly narrow the results. As an example search for Lawrence, Tennessee. The first result is for a person with the last name of Lawrence. There are a handful of results that appear relevant after that, but I know there should be more results than are currently displayed. By page 2 of the results, I am seeing results for anything with the word Lawrence in it.

Selecting Subjects in the left menu to narrow the results, there is no geographic subject to select. Nor can I filter the subject results alphabetically. I know these books were properly cataloged at one point and it was possible to narrow down to a specific location. That appears to be impossible at this point.

I did a second search for an author, Bobby Alford. I get one result that appears correct at the top of the results. But only one. There should be several more. Where are they? There is also no way to sort or narrow down the Creator list.

The search is so frustrating that I have pretty much abandoned using it. Instead I jump over to Worldcat to at least find out if the book is at the Family History library. Unfortunately it does not link me back to the book in the online catalog. I don't quite understand how the search is supposed to function. I am a cataloger at a public library and work with MARC records and an OPAC everyday. This catalog does not function like a library catalog at all and produces very bad results. I am pretty familiar with the different types of search for libraries. Most use Zebra. Some are using ElasticSearch. Only a very few are using Bibframes. What is Family Search doing?

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: Melanes asked What is Family Search doing?

Sadly FamilySearch appears to be doing nothing at all in relation to improvements to the FamilySearch Digital Library

Phil, Employee on the topic "Add Title Search to Digital Library " said October 09, 2019 23:34

"Good news. Many new features will be coming. Maureen all your suggestions have been passed on and we just recently had discussions on improvements".

Since then, as far as I am aware, nothing has changed.

Melanes, I have copied your comment to a larger topic "New format for digitised Books. FamilySearch Digital Library"
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

Melanes, to at least find out if the book is at the Family History library, you
may be better off to first search in the "main" catalog https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...,
rather than in the Digital Library catalog