2023-01-27 Meeting notes

Sharing and Updates

Share any Discovery related information from other SILS groups

• Ex Libris response to Primo VE downtime

• Timeline update for CDI Limit by Availability

FRBR Preferred Records: Testing

Determine if we want to harmonize. Start documenting pros and cons of options.

https://uc-sils.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DIS/pages/1911062529

UCLA:

• Dune by Frank Herbert shows first without FRBR enabled but down at the bottom when FRBR is on. Whether FRBR is turned off our on is the other difference. It is unclear why Dune gets such a low priority in the search results.

UCSC:

• FRBR worked fine when they were a standalone institution. However, since joining the consortium, it has never works the way it should or the way we expect it to. It’s particularly hard to test because the other campus holdings may be impacting the results so if the other campus holdings change, it could change the local results.

• The worst results occur when there are both print and electronic versions.

• Local inventory is not preferred so often it shows other campus records first.

• Multiple print editions prefer special collection or reference rather than general collection. No option for setting by location though.

UC Davis

• Haven’t been able to find any pattern or how the preferred record is picked. The scoring is not simple to decode.

• On the initial result screen, FRBR group and the holdings info says not available even though when you open it up, there is an available record.

UCB

• Did a little FRBR testing in phase 4 and found many issues, particularly with music materials. Scores, different versions were grouping when they shouldn’t and other things were not grouping when they should. (Jess notes Musical scores were one group successfully excluded in the Phase 4 decision: https://uc-sils.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/P4D/pages/1845168558 )

UCSB

• Using an API approach to compare. Noting that dedup disabled doesn’t change the count. May need to experiment more.

Chat notes from Jackie:

“FYI for the Primo VE 2023 release notes for the results per page:

The following issues are known for this functionality:

• Currently, the new drop-down is not appearing for Database and Journal searches when clicking a category from the category tree. This will be fixed for the March 2023 release.

• In browse search, when opening a FRBR record with several versions, the new drop-down doesn’t appear. This will be fixed for March 2023 release.”

Top level conclusion: These records never work the way we expect, for unknown reasons, so it’s hard to make a recommendation. The consortium aspect makes it particularly tricky to get expected results.

Write up documentation explaining how using FRBR in a consortium context creates unpredictable and undesirable results as it is currently designed. Gem/Jesse will create a draft of this document for the group to provide feedback for at our February 10 meeting.