Library Catalogue Feedback

We have reviewed the feedback received during the first 8 weeks of the new system going live.
Thank you for taking the time to use the new catalogue and tell us what you think.

Here is a summary of your feedback.

The search function doesn’t work as well as on the old system.
Because we have found that there are problems with the Exact Match search we have removed the options on the quick search. The default search is now for phrase which will work for full or part titles and single keywords. Authors must be entered surname first, and you may find it easier to use Author Index. Exact match has also been removed from Advanced Search but you still have a choice of Keyword or Phrase.

You still can’t search by subject.
This was often commented on about the old system and because we are still using the same data we are still unable to offer this. You may find it useful to search by Dewey Number in Advanced Search. A list of numbers for different subjects can be found on these websites:

I can’t reserve anything!
We apologise for the problems some of you encountered in the first few weeks. An error in the system was discovered and has been resolved. Please continue to report anything you think is wrong.

The previous loans list in Your Account no longer includes author.
You can see the author's name by clicking the link to the item record, but we understand that you also liked seeing this information on the account screen and being able to sort on it. We have raised this with our supplier for consideration in future releases.

The system doesn’t remember my borrower number.
The system isn’t designed to do this (nor was the old one). It is usually a function of the browser and testing has shown that it does work using Firefox and Internet Explorer on XP but not on Vista.
We have made our supplier aware of this but it does seem to be a widely reported issue with the Vista operating system.

It doesn’t show you when an item is in transit.
The system doesn’t offer this. We understand that you like to see that an item will be arriving soon but it does help staff if you arrive to collect items when you have been notified that they are available for collection and not before.

My SavedList disappears.
Unfortunately the SavedLists are currently not designed to be used as Wish Lists attached to your account but as lists to use during ‘a session’ to reserve from or to email or download.
We have suggested to our supplier that in future releases we would prefer a permanent list attached to your account.

Lots of you had good suggestions which will all be considered and we hope to be able to offer some of them in the future including:

Restoring links to Amazon
Searching other library catalogues
Book group reservations
Email of outstanding loans

I want to