• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 20

Description:
After I do a search in the GUI and then click "show" there is a button in the lower pane called "Locate". When I click it, I get a window "select databases to locate".
1. Where are the libraries in this list from?
2. What search is taken in the selected database after I choose a database and then click OK?

Resolution:
The list of libraries appearing in the window "select databases to locate" comes from the /alephcom/tab/locate.dat file on your PC.

For example if locate.dat appears as follows then ABC01 Library and Library of Congress will appear as locate options
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!+!!!!!
ABC01 Library ABC01 ABC01
Library of Congress LOC EXT01

The procedures for locating a record in other libraries through GUI (and web) Search are defined in $data_tab/tab_locate
It works as follows:
Column 1 is the library which may be searched. It must appear the sanme way as it appears in $alephe_tab/tab_base.lng.
Column 2 and column 3 contain the fields and sub fields which will be checked for similarity.
Column 4 contains the actual find command.
Column 5 contains an "extract" function defining how the contents of the fields are handled.

The possible extract functions are described in the header. The two most popular ones are "locate_str_0" and "locate_str_1".
They are defined as follows.

! Extract Functions:
! locate_str_0 - Takes subfield content as is.
! locate_str_1 - Runs "build_filing_key" on subfield and
! takes the 2 longest words.
! A word must be at least 2 characters in
! order to be considered as a "word".
! If the subfield has only one word, the one word
! will be taken.

Thus if we have the following in tab_locate of ABC01 data_tab
ABC01 100## a wau= locate_str_0
LOC 245## a wti= locate_str_1

and we search ABC01 and select record which has 245 field:
24514 L $$aThe nineteen letters of Ben Uziel :$$bbeing a spiritual presentation of the principles of Judaism /$$cby Samson Raphael Hirsch ; translated by Bernard Drachman ; together with a preface and a biographical sketch of the author by the translator.

and then we choose "locate" and then choose "Library of Congress" a new search will be done in Library of Congress for "WTI = nineteen and letters"

IMPORTANT NOTE: When choosing "locate" after searching a z39.50 database the tab_locate table which is used come from the EXT01 library.

If we were to have the following in tab_locate of ABC01 data_tab
ABC01 100## a wau= locate_str_0
ABC01 245## a wti= locate_str_1
LOC 245## a wti= locate_str_0

and do as we did above,
a new search will be done in Library of Congress for "WTI = The nineteen letters of Ben Uziel"

If we were to have the followind in tab_locate of EXT01 data_tab
ABC01 100## a wau= locate_str_0
ABC01 245## a wti= locate_str_1

and we were to search Library of Congress and find a record with the following two fields:
1001 L $$aJackson, William Vernon.
24510 L $$aBasic library techniques;$$ba manual for Library science 195.

and then select the record and click "locate" and choose ABC01, the following search would be done:

"WAU - Jackson William" AND "WTI = techniques and library"

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013