OPAC

Merge Notification Preferences Tables in TPAC

The patron notification preference page in the public catalog used to have two tables, separating notification settings based on their source. Since that distinction does not matter to patrons, and since the two tables aren’t styled consistently, they are merged together.

Improved Holds Screens in My Account

The grids in the My Account Items on Hold and Holds History interfaces are simplified. Data previously contained in their own Activate, Active, and Date Fulfilled columns are now incorporated into the Status column. To further declutter the interface, the holds queue position will only show when the user most needs the information - before the hold has been captured.

Distinct CSS classes have also been added for each hold status and each date that could potentially display in these holds interfaces. A new default style highlights the Available status in green and the Suspended status in red.

Popularity Boost for Ranking Search Results

This feature uses factors such as circulation and hold activity, record and item age, and item ownership counts to generate popularity badges for bibliographic records. Each badge will have a five-point scale, where more points indicates a more popular record. The average of the badge points earned by each record will constitute a "popularity rating". The number and types of badges will break ties for average popularity, and relevance will sort items with like popularity.

A new sort axis of popularity is created to sort first on the weighted average popularity of each record, followed by the query-specific relevance available today. A new option is created in the drop-down called Most Popular that sorts on the combination of "activity metric" (aka badge ranking, aka popularity) first and then the existing, stock relevance ranking when those are equal. For instance, given two records that both have a badge ranking of "4.5", they sort in the order of the query relevance ranking that is calculated today as a tie breaker. Those two records will sort above other records with lower badge rankings regardless of what today’s relevance ranking says about them.

In addition, a new sort axis of Popularity-Adjusted Relevance is created that augments the normal Relevance sort with a normalized popularity value by multiplying the base relevance by a value controlled by a new global flag, generally set to a decimal number between 1 and 2.

Finally, there will continue to be a pure Relevance sort option, which is the version that exists today.

Administrators can comment out one of the available sort methods by editing the filtersort.tt2 file.A global flag will allow Evergreen sites to select a default sort method.

Badge Configuration

Administrative interfaces to configure badges are only available in the web client. Administrators can also configure badges directly via the database.

Available Popularity Parameters available for badges include:

  • Holds Filled Over Time
  • Holds Requested Over Time
  • Current Hold Count
  • Circulations Over Time
  • Current Circulation Count
  • Out/Total Ratio
  • Holds/Total Ratio
  • Holds/Holdable Ratio
  • Percent of Time Circulating
  • Bibliographic Record Age (days)
  • Publication Age (days)
  • Available On-Line (for e-books, etc)
  • Copy Count

Badges can be configured to apply to a targeted group of bibliographic records based on the following available filters:

  • Record attribute
  • Bibliographic source
  • Circulation modifier
  • Copy location group

Badges can also be be restricted to materials owned by a specific organizational unit.

This new feature comes with a starter badge based on the top 97th percentile of holds requested over the past five years.

Display in the OPAC

Ratings for records will be displayed in the catalog in the following ways:

  • On the record result page, the overall average popularity rating is displayed with a label of Popularity.
  • On the record detail page, each individual badge earned by the record is displayed with its rating.

New Global Flags

  • OPAC Default Sort (opac.default_sort): Identifies the default sort method to be used in the catalog.
  • Maximum popularity importance multiplier for popularity-adjusted relevance searches (search.max_popularity_importance_multiplier): A multiplier identifying the importance of popularity in the Popularity-Adjusted Relevance ranked searches. The number should be a decimal ranging between 1.0 and 2.0. The default value is 1.1.

More detailed information is available in the TechRef docs directory of the Evergreen source code.

Removal of Advanced Hold Options link when part holds are expected

If a user attempts to place a metarecord hold when all eligible copies contain parts, the hold will fail. To help prevent the user from reaching a dead end while placing holds, the Advanced Hold Options link is removed from the Place Hold page in cases where all copies on the record contain parts. The Advanced Hold Options link will remain for records that have a mix of parted and non-parted copies.