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Updates to the catalogue

Updates to the catalogue

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If you have further questions, comments or suggestions please use our Catalogue Help form.

New features in the catalogue

Listed below are the features recently added to the catalogue.

Feature Date Description & Example
‘Digital collections’ added to the search box dropdown list May 2020

You can search all digitised collections in the catalogue in one search.

Use Refine my results > Digital Collections to narrow your search to Archival Digital (such as manuscripts, objects, paintings, photographs) and Published Digital (such as books, maps, music scores).
Search default is 'Everything' April 2019

With recent enhancements to relevancy ranking for top search results, the Library catalogue will now search for ‘Everything’ by default. 

Previously, the catalogue only searched for 'Everything except articles' (by default), meaning your search results didn't include journal and newspaper articles.

You can always revert back to excluding articles, by selecting 'Everything except articles' from the drop-down.

For more information, see You asked, we delivered – Making it easier to find peer-reviewed articles and more!
Thumbnails for digital collection items November 2018

Thumbnail icons are now available for digitised maps, books, journals and posters, as well as digitised unpublished material such as photographs, paintings and manuscripts.  eg. Sydney artwork.

This makes visual browsing of results easier.

'Published Digital' filter

 November 2018

For published material like maps, books and posters. you can use the ‘Full text online’ filter OR the new Published Digital filter.  

This new filter is particularly useful if you want to find online versions from both published and unpublished collections together.

eg. When searching for online items relating to Miles Franklin, selecting both the Archival Digital and Published Digital filters will find results for printed books, as well as unpublished material such as photographs and diaries.
Author/Creator searching November 2018

Do you want to search for all results for an author/artist/creator?

In the Advanced search and the ‘refine search’ filters, Author/Creator now searches the main author/artist/creator as well as any additional author/artist listed in the record.  

eg. Elizabeth Gould was not the main Author/Creator in some works with her husband, but when she is a contributing author/artist, search returns these works.
Enhancements to the collection viewer to make it easier for people to view and share collection images.  20 June 2018

The new features include: 

  • Arrows on the right hand side make it easier to scroll through consecutive images in the viewer.
  • The image can be easily reset in the viewer using a button on the right hand side. 
  • High resolution images (when available) are displayed in the viewer rather that having to click on the link to 'Zoomified image'.
  • A permalink to individual images is now available and individual images can be shared on social media. 
  • The updated toolbar works better with browser accessibility tools.

See the new features in these viewers:

Link to ‘Digital version of this item’

26 March 2018

For original material, a link to the ‘Digital version of this item’ has been added to the top of the full display. This takes you directly to the digital (online) version in the collection viewer.

In this example, you can see the new ‘Digital version of this item’ link under ‘Source’.

New look search box added to our website.

 20 December 2017

We have introduced a new look search box to our website which allows you to search the catalogue from any page on the site.

Archival Digital filter

22 November 2017

Do you only want to see results with an image that can be viewed online?

Use the Archival Digital filter to limit your unpublished material results. For published material like maps, use the ‘Full text online’ filter.

As a great example, when searching for Conrad Martens’ artwork, using the Archival Digital filter can reduce the results from nearly 600 to only 134.

Filter by Date Range

 22 November 2017

Do you want to narrow your results to a certain date range?

This is now possible in both Advanced Search (specific date) and Refine your Results.

You can also use ‘Sort by’ date dropdown options for Date-oldest and Date-newest

Searchable name field

 22 November 2017

Search by ‘name’, even if the ‘name’ isn’t the author or listed in the title?

Solved! The name field is now searchable.

Example: In the 1920s, Tilly Devine was too ‘busy’ to be an author, but Frank Fahy had information about her in his scrapbook.

Collection Hierarchy

 22 November 2017

Use the Archival Hierarchy filter to narrow your results, for example to Collection level.
     

Issues we are working on

Listed below are the issues we are currently working on to resolve. We acknowledge that these issues are presenting difficulties for you and we thank you for your continued patience.  

Issue Description Catalogue tip

Hierarchy display for Manuscripts, Oral Histories and Pictures catalogue
[logged March 2017]

In progress

1. Collection hierarchy display in the Manuscripts, Oral Histories and Pictures catalogue loads 10 records at one time – can be difficult for browsing.

2. The individual records are ordered alphabetically by title, rather than by box or file number.

Try the Hierarchy Browser in the preview of our new catalogue (beta)

Eg. Series 93.07: Letter received by Sarah Sophia Banks from Joseph Banks, March 1774

Collection viewer – scroll and browse
[logged May 2017]

 Difficult to scroll through multiple images.

Try the collection viewer (with Album view) in the preview of our new catalogue (beta)

Eg. Series 01: Views of Australasia : album of prints from various sources, some hand coloured, ca. 1773 - 1848

Serial holdings
[logged May 2016]

In progress - major improvements implemented September 2017.

Some problems with the migration of serials records to the new system (eg catalogue records for journals, magazines, newspapers).

Improvement implemented.

Printing results list from single search catalogue
[logged Dec 2016]

In progress with Vendor

Printing or exporting a list of results requires them to be first pinned as favourites one by one.

You can save records in bulk. ie. the top 50 results of your search:

  1. Perform a search.
  2. On the search results page, click the check box above the list (top left) to make the CHOOSE TOP 50 RESULTS box to appear.
  3. Click on this box to select the top 50 results.
  4. Click on the ‘Pin’ icon to add these 50 items to your Favourite or click on the three dots symbol to select E-MAIL, PRINT, etc.

If you sign-in using your Library card number and password before your search, you can tag these records to form a search results set and can continue adding titles to this set.

Catalogue records not currently searchable via external search engines 
[logged May 2016] 

 In progress with Vendor - may be resolved in upcoming release.

 

Digitised image previously available does not display
[logged May 2016]

In progress

Update October 2017: good progress has been made with migration exceptions.

Most images have been successfully migrated, however some published and unpublished digitised material are not yet available and are listed on our exceptions list - these are digitised files which encountered errors in the migration process and require further analysis.