Set Default Search Selections

To specify the default selections for quick and advanced searches:

Important:
These settings also affect Polaris PowerPAC.

  1. In the Administration Explorer tree view, open the Profiles folder for the organization, and click the PAC tab in the details view.

Mobile PAC uses the settings for the user’s current connection branch.

Note:
For information about allowing branch switching, see Setting Up Mobile PAC Connections.

  1. Double-click Search settings defaults.

The Search Settings Defaults dialog box opens.

  1. Click the Quick tab and set the quick search options as follows:
    1. Select the default search field in the Search by list. The setting applies to every quick search. The default is Any Field.
    2. Select the default search filter in the Limit by list. The available selections depend on the organization’s settings in the PAC Limit By Display policy table. The default selection is All formats (that is, no filter; TOM=*).

Note:
You can change the labels of existing filters and set up custom filters. See Setting Up Search Filters (Limit By).

  1. Select the default sort order for search results in the Sort by list. The setting applies to every quick search. The default selection is Relevance. This selection sorts results based on weighted keyword frequency and proximity, so that those most likely to meet the user’s needs appear first in the list. Most Popular sorts titles in the search results so that the titles most frequently checked out or requested over the past 120 days appear first in the list.

Options that include two categories sort results by the first category, then by the second category. For example, with Author, then Title, the titles are sorted alphabetically by author then, within each author’s works, alphabetically by title.

  1. Click the Advanced tab and set the advanced search options as follows:
    1. Select the default search field in the Search by list. The default selection is Any Field.
    2. Select the default search filter in the Limit by list. The default selection is All formats (that is, no filter; TOM=*).

Note:
You can change the labels of existing filters and set up custom filters. See Setting Up Search Filters (Limit By).

  1. Select the default sort order for search results in the Sort by - When searching local databases only list. The default selection is Relevance.
  1. Click Save.
  2. (Optional) To set automatic subsorting by title for certain sort types, set the PAC profile Search: Sub-sort-by-title to Yes. This allows patrons to quickly find a known title in a large results set.

When the profile is set to Yes, the records are first sorted by the selected sort option and then sorted alphabetically by title, ignoring nonfiling characters (respecting the value of the 245 second indicator). The setting does not affect these sort types: relevance, most popular, title, author then title, title then author, title then publication date, title then format, publication date then title, call number then title.

Note:
This setting affects both Polaris PowerPAC and Mobile PAC. The profile is available at the system, library, and branch levels. It is set to No by default; you may want to leave this setting if you find the automatic subsort impacts performance.

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