Column sorting availability is variable for short-a-head

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
Somehow we ended up with variations as to which columns are sortable in short-a-head. While none work when searching our union catalog and our largest individual library base, some work when searching bases for some other libraries. We want them all to be the same and we want to add sorting for columns format and year, if possible.

Resolution:
The problem comes from the settings of two variables in www_server.conf. You currently have set_result_set_limit set to 20000 and www_sort_limit set to 3000. What this means is that the OPAC will display as many as 20,000 hits as the results of any given search, but will only allow you to sort up to 3,000 of them. So, if you do a keyword search on the Union catalog base for "laser", you retrieve 4172 hits, which is greater than the 3000 sort limit, so you do not see the option to sort the results. When I did a search on "penicillin", I retrieved only 73 hits, so I saw the option to sort. Other searches will fall into the same pattern, depending on whether they retrieve more or fewer than 3000 records. On your smaller bases, the same search retrieves fewer records, so you see the sorting option. On your largest library, however, you just missed the limit by retrieving 3129 hits, so you don't see it.

How you resolve this is up to you. You can drop your results limit (set_result_set_limit) to 3000 so all searches can be sorted or you can live with the situation now that you now how it works (perhaps adding a note for patrons) or you can raise or even eliminate www_sort_limit. The maximum value for that is 999999. You want to set it as high as possible without getting so high that users have to wait too long for results when they choose to sort.

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013