Awful search suggestions



  • All the libraries across South Australia have been migrating across to a single borrowing platform to, amongst other things, make getting materials from other libraries significantly easier and making it possible to walk into any public library and use a library card to borrow materials regardless of one's home library. As most of the libraries in South Australia used the Dynix Horizon system, the logical choice was to use SirsiDynix Symphony, the newest version of it.

    For the most part, it's pretty good and the changeovers have gone without a hitch. I don't have to go into the library to get them to get a book from another library in for me, I can do it at 2am in the comfort of my bed in my underwear and I can now visit the public library attached to one of my uni campuses and pick up books.


    Strangest thing, though, is the suggestions it will provide. Today, I was seeing if any libraries in the state had a copy of a book called "Austerity, The History of a Dangerous Idea". They didn't. Symphony did, however, suggest I look for the title "australian The historic of a kangaroo ideas". I mean, I can understand it's confusion, they're both pretty similar and grammatically correct... right?


    Worse, it even attempts to make suggestions when the item you're looking for actually exists. A search for It's Kind of a Funny Story returned the correct results along with the suggestion of "it's find of a fun history". I just... did they even test this "feature"?

    (strangely, though, if you use the generic SA Libraries version of the Symphony catalouge, suggestions never appear. Go figure.)



  • Soundex abuse?



  • @Douglasac said:

    Today, I was seeing if any libraries in the state had a copy of a book called "Austerity, The History of a Dangerous Idea". They didn't. Symphony did, however, suggest I look for the title "australian The historic of a kangaroo ideas". I mean, I can understand it's confusion, they're both pretty similar and grammatically correct... right?
    Pre-internet version:

    The story is told (in a book of music-related anecdotes compiled by Dudley Moore) of a man who visited an old-timey music store, looking for a copy of the sheet music to an old English tune called "Could I But Express In Song".  The clerk (here I picture a short man with white hair, very thick eyeglasses and a bad tremor) said he wasn't familiar with it, but would check his resources and see if he couldn't find it.  The customer left his contact information and left the store.

    Some weeks passed, and a hand-printed card arrived in the mail from the music store.  The old clerk expressed his deepest regrets that despite an exhaustive search he had been unable to find any music for "Kodaly's 'Buttocks-Pressing' Song".


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Our county libraries use the same software, and the search sucks. I tend to look stuff up on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and have the library search by ISBN.



  • @Douglasac said:

    All the libraries across South Australia have been migrating across to a single borrowing platform to, amongst other things, make getting materials from other libraries significantly easier and making it possible to walk into any public library and use a library card to borrow materials regardless of one's home library.
     

    So if you go to Queensland you're screwed?



  • The list of things I would do instead of willingly be in Queensland include contracting chlamydia.



  • @Douglasac said:

    The list of things I would do instead of willingly be in Queensland include contracting chlamydia.
     

     

    But if you go to Queensland AND get screwed, contracting chlamydia could be a distinct possibility..... PROFIT!



  • @Douglasac said:

    The list of things I would do instead of willingly be in Queensland include contracting chlamydia.

    GRAMMAR LESSON TIME

    list is not plural



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    @Douglasac said:

    The list of things I would do instead of willingly be in Queensland include contracting chlamydia.
     

     

    But if you go to Queensland AND get screwed, contracting chlamydia could be a distinct possibility..... PROFIT!

    I once had a son in Queensland and chlamydia, let me assure you it was no profiting matter.



  •  Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more? Just use the card file ya pussies.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Snooder said:

     Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more? Just use the card file ya pussies.

    I haven't seen one of those in over 20 years.



  • @Snooder said:

     Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more? Just use the card file ya pussies.

    I had to go to my university library for an assignment a couple of weeks ago (I'm in my 30s and back in school). I looked all over for a card catalog, but there wasn't one. They don't even have the dewey decimal system there, they have the Library of Congress numbering system. I never did find a way to look it up in the library without grabbing my computer and going to their website.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Snooder said:

     Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more? Just use the card file ya pussies.

     

    [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHoHaAYHq8"]Don't you know the Dewey Decimal SYSTEM?[/url]

                                                /


     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @Snooder said:

     Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more? Just use the card file ya pussies.

     

    Don't you know the Dewey Decimal SYSTEM?

                                                /


     

     

    Oh, that reminds me of this.

     



  • @Snooder said:

     Does nobody learn the Dewey Decimal system any more?
    I know enough of the Dewey system to keep me out of trouble, but it's useless for fiction books (they're sorted by author) and in most newer SA libraries anyway as the new organizational approach is group similar categories of books under one category and scatter them randomly. Looks pretty and is handy for browsing but makes it a bitch to find a specific title.



  • Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands! Ha ha ha!



  • They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.2


  • Considered Harmful

    @DrakeSmith said:

    They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.20000000000000004

    FPTFY



  • @DrakeSmith said:

    They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.2

    Not Sure if being trolled


  • Considered Harmful

    @RTapeLoadingError said:

    @DrakeSmith said:
    They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.2

    Not Sure if being trolled

    I ruined explained his joke for you.

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RTapeLoadingError said:

    @DrakeSmith said:
    They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.2

    Not Sure if being trolled
    Not sure if being trolled.



  • The Dewey Decimal System is worthless.  802.11 isn't even the category for wireless networking.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @joe.edwards said:

    Comparing floats is harder than it looks.
    Comparing floats is easy. Getting the answer you expected… rather harder.



  • @PJH said:

    @RTapeLoadingError said:
    @DrakeSmith said:
    They tried the Dewey Float System, but nobody could find a match for book 302.2

    Not Sure if being stupid trolled
    Not sure if being trolled.

    FTFM. As a non-developer, non-Computer Scientist I learned something today. Better than the thing I learned yesterday which was that cornering and braking in the wet on a bike is a bad idea.


  • Garbage Person

    @DrakeSmith said:

    I looked all over for a card catalog, but there wasn't one. They don't even have the dewey decimal system there, they have the Library of Congress numbering system. I never did find a way to look it up in the library without grabbing my computer and going to their website.

    There wasn't a card catalog because updating those is a giant pain in the dick.Even moreso when some cnut moves a card. That's why they have those handy computers sitting right there, so you can use them.

    Also, Library of Congress > Dewey. Used Dewey in elementary and middle school, LoC in high school and university.



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    cornering and braking in the wet on a bike is a bad idea.

     

     Hope that will heal quickly. FWIW I managed to skid on dry, even pavement yesterday (in an emergency braking situation) but maintained my balance.

    Let's not talk about my skid in gravel last year ...

     



  • @Weng said:

    @DrakeSmith said:

    I looked all over for a card catalog, but there wasn't one. They don't even have the dewey decimal system there, they have the Library of Congress numbering system. I never did find a way to look it up in the library without grabbing my computer and going to their website.

    There wasn't a card catalog because updating those is a giant pain in the dick.Even moreso when some cnut moves a card. That's why they have those handy computers sitting right there, so you can use them.

    Also, Library of Congress > Dewey. Used Dewey in elementary and middle school, LoC in high school and university.


    Can you imagine what would happen if someone put a book listing in the wrong place in the database's index and the binary search tree violated its invariant?



  • @oheso said:

    @RTapeLoadingError said:

    cornering and braking in the wet on a bike is a bad idea.

     

     Hope that will heal quickly. FWIW I managed to skid on dry, even pavement yesterday (in an emergency braking situation) but maintained my balance.

    Let's not talk about my skid in gravel last year ...

     

    It was more embarrassing than anything. Lying clipped in on the road with motorists and pedestrians asking if I'm OK / looking at me like I'm a typical cyclist wanker.

    Gravel would be much worse



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:



    Gravel would be much worse

     

    It was. Although it looked worse than it was, and the blood running down my thigh freaked the hell out of some little kid. Good thing I have experience being reassuring in Japanese baby talk.

    Some random good Samaritan retiree gave me a bunch of alcohol wipes to clean up with.

     



  • @levbor said:

    @Douglasac said:

    All the libraries across South Australia have been migrating across to a single borrowing platform to, amongst other things, make getting materials from other libraries significantly easier and making it possible to walk into any public library and use a library card to borrow materials regardless of one's home library.
     

    So if you go to Queensland you're screwed?

    Pretty much.
    I've got one library card that will work in ACT libraries and another for Queanbeyan which is right across the border, since I (currently) live in one and work in the other. Though I haven't used either in many years.



  • @Eternal HQDensity said:

    Pretty much

    Hey I have four separate library cards for four different Queensland library networks. Gold Coast, Logan, Brisbane and Toowoomba. It's relatively easy to sign up even if it's a bit of a pita to have all those cards.



  • @Zemm said:

    Hey I have four separate library cards for four different Queensland library networks.

    I felt like James Bond when I got my second passport (Aus to add to UK). Is 4 library cards anything like that?


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