Question

What are some of the primary tables used in searching Voyager?

Answer

• BIB_INDEX. This contains entries for standard numbers extracted from bibliographic records, entries for access points that are not subject to authority control (such as the 246 and 740 fields), and also entries for access points that are subject to authority-control. However, the form of the ‘authority-controlled’ access points is not actually appropriate for use in authority control. This is the table you’re using when you do one of these searches (among others): Title, Corporate Name AE, ISBN.
• AUTH_INDEX. This is parallel to the BIB_INDEX table, but only contains standard numbers (such as the 010 field) extracted from authority records.
• BIB_TEXT. This contains various bits of information extracted from bibliographic records. Of primary interest are things extracted from the record leader and 008 field (such as record type and date of publication). This table is used primarily in limiting search results.
• MFHD_MASTER. This table contains information pulled from holdings records. The call number used in call number searching lives in this table.
• HEADING. This table contains information extracted from both bibliographic and authority records. This is the primary table used when searching for headings. The table has a number of satellite tables that are dependent on it (AUTH_HEADING and BIB_HEADING). This is the table you’re searching when you do one of these searches (among others): Staff Subject Headings Search, Staff Title Headings Search, Staff Name Headings Search, Staff Name/Title Headings Search. Using these tables a program can derive a list of authority records and/or bibliographic records that contain a given heading.
• SUBDIVISION. The SUBDIVISION table contains subject subdivisions extracted from both bibliographic and authority records. This is the table used by the cataloging client when you do a staff subject subdivision search. Like the HEADING table, this table has a number of satellite tables that are dependent on it (AUTH_SUBDIVISION, etc.).  Using these tables a program can derive a list of authority records and/or bibliographic records that contain a given subdivision.

Additional Information

Searching in Voyager does not involve a direct scan of bibliographic and authority records. Instead, searching involves the examination of information extracted from bibliographic and authority records at the time records are stored in the database. Voyager pulls information from bibliographic and authority records and stores it in a series of tables. Voyager uses those tables as a means of identifying bibliographic and authority records of interest when you do a search.

Note that there is a distinction in Oracle between tables and indexes.  Some of the above are tables, others are indexes. The generation of indexes to Voyager records involves several steps: the selection of the fields that need to be indexed and the subfields of interest within those fields, the conversion of text into normalized form, and the conversion of the tag, indicators and other data into coded information to simplify comparisons.

• Article last edited: 15-Mar-2020