Can QuickSets be Hidden?

• Article Type: General
• Product: MetaLib
• Product Version: 4

Description:
Some of the librarians are creating search boxes on library web pages using QuickSets. They’d like to create a search box on a QuickSet that doesn’t appear in the public portal. Since the link requires a QuickSet number, I think that they have to create a QuickSet first. They are concerned about the number of QuickSets that appear. I know our limit is 99.

Resolution:
QuickSets cannot be hidden. There is no way to search a QuickSet that is not public and visible to those users who have access to it. On the other hand, a personal QuickSet is only available to the user who created it and thus cannot be accessed by other users.

The way around this is to use MetaSearch instead of QuickSearch. MetaSearch has the ability to search any combination of databases together while QuickSearch can only search pre-defined (and visible) sets.

Create a searchbox / deep link using MetaSearch instead of QuickSearch and "call" each desired database (ckbox=) by its local IRD number (the one starting with your 3-letter customer code). For example:
http://library.exlibrisgroup.com:8331/V/?func=meta-1-check&institute=EXLIBRIS&portal=EXLIBRIS&mode=simple&find_request_1=dog&ckbox=EXL02017&ckbox=EXL02221&ckbox=EXL01972&submit=go

When this search is executed outside of MetaLib, the user will see the search running and then the results. The fact that the search is executed in MetaSearch and not QuickSearch is generally not a problem, since the user only sees the intermediate page and then the results list.

The only exception to that statement is for libraries that have set up the MetaSearch Summary page differently from the QuickSearch Summary page. For example, if they are set to "Jump to Results" in QuickSearch and not in MetaSearch, it will seem that the MetaSearch search is different. However, if MetaSearch is also configured to jump to results, then you would be hard pressed to see the minor differences between a running search in MetaSearch vs. QuickSearch. (Jump to Results is an option in server parameters.)

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013