Searching for Resources in the WebPAC

You can use WebPAC search help pages to allow patron searches for electronic resources by resource name or subject. A search help page is a customizable form that works with a search command link to search an index for search terms.

To search within resource name or resource subject, data from the RESOURCE NAME and RESOURCE SUBJECT variable-length fields of the resource record must be indexed. The default index tag for the resource title is y. The default index tag for the resource subject is m. (Note that the index tags and the variable-length field tags are not the same. The default variable-length field tag for the resource title is t. The default variable-length field tag for the resource subject is d.)

To view your system's index tags for resource data, choose the following menu options in the menus:

M > MANAGEMENT information
   I > INFORMATION about the system
      C > CODES used
         I > Display INDEX rules
            [Numbered menu option] > RESOURCE

To search for resources in the WebPAC, you can invoke a standard search help page accessed by means of a command link. For example:

http://[your_library_ip]/search/[resource index tag]

This command link displays the system default srchhelp_[resource index tag].html file. You can customize this file. See Search Help Pages for more information.

Using the srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html File

To set up a more sophisticated search page for the resource indexes, use srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html example files.

If a srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file is not present on your system, download the latest example set for WebPAC from CSDirect and extract the examples from the set.

You can edit the appropriate example for the srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file to suit your needs. The file itself contains comments on its customization and use. The WebPAC example set contains the following srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file examples:

Example File	Use
srchhelp_y_erm.html	Example of a srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file.
srchhelp_y_erm_no_subject.html	Example of a srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file without the optional subject input.

Create two copies of the edited srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html file named with the appropriate index letters. For example:

• srchhelp_y.html
• srchhelp_m.html

If edited and renamed srchhelp_[resource index tag]_erm.html files exist on your system, the command links /search/[resource name index tag] and /search/[resource subject index tag] use the customized files instead of the default name and subject search of resource records.

When you have created the files, load them into your WebPAC staging/screens directory for testing. Move them to the live/screens directory when you have completed your tests.

Using A-Z Lists

An A-Z list is a listing of the alphabet in which each letter is a link and each link is a search command. For example, clicking on "A" searches for and returns every resource record that starts with "A". Each link in an A-Z list in the srchhelp_erm.html file has the following format:

http://www.library.edu/search/<tag>?<letter>

where <tag> is the Resource Name index tag and <letter> is the first letter of the resource record entry. For example:

http://www.library.edu/search/e?a
http://www.library.edu/search/e?b
http://www.library.edu/search/e?c
http://www.library.edu/search/e?d

Innovative does not recommend using bibliographic titles in the A-Z lists. A-Z lists do not limit searches, so a search would retrieve all bibliographic records that start with a given letter, not just the e-journal bibliographic records. However, if you set up a scope for e-journals or are on a scope where all the bibliographic records are e-journals, then A-Z lists could work for bibliographic titles.