PAS Advisory Group Meeting Summary
The PAS Advisory Group met on Thursday, November 16 to discuss elements of PowerPAC that will remain consistent for patrons, regardless of which library's catalog they are searching. Read on for a summary of their recommendations.
Brief Display
The brief display information appears along with the book cover in a list of search results. There are over 50 elements available for display in this view. The recommended list of elements to include in the brief display are:
Title
Author
Edition
Series
Summary
Local availability
System availability
Local call number
Former title (serials)
Summary Display
The summary display shows when a user hovers over the book cover in the list of search results. The advisory group recommends that the summary display include valuable information not present in the brief display, including:
Snippet (which shows the piece of the record the search is pulling from)
Description
Publisher
Target Audience Note
Full Display
The full display is meant to include a wider breadth of information than the summary and brief displays. The advisory group recommends including:
Type of material/format
Author
Title
Publisher, date
Description
Summary
Target Audience
Series
Volume and Frequency
Subjects
Genre
Other Author
Former Title
Notes
Contents
ISBN/ISSN
We will customize which bib fields the above information is pulled from, limiting and modifying the delivered fields when needed (such as Notes).
Limit By filter
CCS will work to develop a custom filter for each branch to allow patrons to limit their search to only items owned by that branch.
Facets
Facets were reconfigured to appear in the following order, with facets most useful to patrons and staff appearing at the top of the list:
Availability (Expanded)
Type of material (Expanded)
Target Audience (Expanded)
Literary Form (Expanded)
Subject (Expanded)
Language (Collapsed)
Authors (Collapsed)
Series (Collapsed)
Publication Date (Collapsed)
Assigned branch (Collapsed)
Language
The advisory group also recommended changing the language on the availability, full display and request buttons to be more patron-friendly.
The PAS advisory group will continue to consult with CCS staff on system-wide PowerPAC configuration as we learn more about our customization options.
