Some Things Are Not Improvements

[bookslover]

Computerized library catalogs drive me nuts.

If I'm looking for books by, say, John Smith, then just give me a list of John Smith's books that the library has - AND NOT A LIST OF EVERYTHING THE LIBRARY HAS THAT INCLUDES THE WORDS "JOHN" OR "SMITH."

How hard could that be?

Oh, for the days of physical card catalogs. . .

 

[sc_q_jayce]

Most commercial ILS products should be able to handle various search strings such as

"John Smith"
or
John+Smith
or
John AND Smith

You might want to check to see what special capabilities these library catalogs have just to be sure.

 

[Jake]

Worldcat for example will let you search a general keyword (which would return results similar to what you said) or for the author field specifically. I'd imagine most library searches would have an advanced search where you can search within fields, though I guess some might want to be like Google and just provide a single search box to rule them all.