MetaLib Results List - Secondary Sort Order when the Primary Sort is by Rank

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

Description:
When presenting search results, MetaLib is using 6 different icons to reflect the result's rank. The rank values range from 0 to100, while MetaLib is using the following groupping of the rank values for representation with icons

0 - 0
1 - 20
21 - 40
41 - 60
61 - 80
81 - 100

Thus each rank icon may, in fact, represent several different rank values groupped withing a certain range.

The results are by default sorted by the rank value. It is possible to get results list where it seems that within the same rank the secondary sort is not in correct order, but actually these may be result records with different ranks represented by the same rank icon, and the secondary sort within these sub-divisions is, in fact, correct.

Resolution:
The specific rank value can be seen in the result record’s full view, using View Original Format, field RANK.

For example: In MetaLib Demo, run a QuickSearch for a term "scaphoid" in the “Health and Medicine” QuickSet.
The secondary sort method defined for the demo installation is by Title and the first impression may be that it is performed incorrectly as the record with the title “Acute scaphoid fractures” is the 5th in the list (the numbering of the results is for the time of composing of this KB item). In the record's Full View, however, it can be seen that this record’s rank is 82, while the rank for the 4th result, “The fractured scaphoid / Timothy J. Herbert”, is 99.