Tip for 11.12.18
Are your series sorting correctly in Researcher? If not, here are a few fixes you can make to your title records.
Standardize the series name
Search results are sorted first by series name and then by volume number. So if you have Magic Tree House and Magic Tree House Series, all of the Magic Tree House volumes will be listed before the Magic Tree House Series volumes. An easy fix here is to make the series the same for all titles. It's also a good idea to check that the series name is in the Series field. If, for example, it's been added to the Title, Subtitle, or Statement of Responsibility fields, Alexandria won't know how to sort it.
If you need to change series names in bulk, you can use the Change a MARC Tag (v7) or Modify (v6) utility to change 830_a from, for example, from Magic Tree House Series to Magic Tree House.
Standardize the volume field
If you have Magic Tree House vol 1 and Magic Tree House volume 2 and Magic Tree House 3, no matter what you do, "3" will sort before the other two. You can fix this by standardizing the volume field across all of the titles in the series.
There's a utility for that
In Alexandria version 7, there is a new utility that can help you with the volume field.
- Go to Tools > Utilities.
- In the Titles category, select Change Series Volume.
- Fill out selection criteria, such as Titles in the Series, to limit the changing titles to a manageable size.
- Under the Options tab, fill in the volume prefix you prefer, such as Vol or #. Or, leave the field blank to have no prefix, which will show up as, for example, “Magic tree house; 001”.
- Run the utility.
- Download the information file from Operations Management to see if any volumes did not update.
This utility takes the Series 830_v tag and gets rid of everything but the number, converts the number to at least a three digit number by padding with 0s, and adds the prefix you entered. Thus, volume “bk1” gets converted to “Prefix 001”, volume “two” to “Prefix 002” etcetera.
Here are a few examples of how the data would change (weird ones in pink, unchanged in blue):
OLD VOLUME (before utility) | NEW VOLUME (using prefix = “Book”) |
---|---|
Book 1 | Book 001 |
V. 1 | Book 001 |
12 | Book 012 |
100 | Book 100 |
one | Book 001 |
twenty-two | twenty-two |
bookone | bookone |
b1 | Book 001 |
Vol. # twenty | Book 020 |
Vol 1234 | Book 1234 |
v#1 | Book 001 |
# 1 | Book 001 |
s1b2 | Book 012 |
1.2 | Book 012 |
01-02 | Book 102 |
Pad your numbers
You'll also want to pad the volume numbers with zeros (i.e. 001, 002) so "volume 10" doesn't show up before "volume 2". Why? Because the series volume field is not a numeric field; it sorts alphabetically. For example:
With padded 0s, Alexandria can sort the series like this.
001
002
010
020
100
Without padded 0s, those series numbers would be sorted like this:
1
10
100
2
20
With these fixes, you'll have your series sorting correctly in no time!
Recent Posts
Blog Posts
-
Winter storms–recompute due dates
created by
Jan 23, 2024
-
How to add reports in the new beta–you beta be trying it!
created by
Jan 16, 2024
-
Site-specific eBooks
created by
Jan 10, 2024
-
User-friendly–optimize your setup
created by
Dec 01, 2023
-
The gift of keyboard shortcuts
created by
Nov 30, 2023
-
Builder: customize your search
created by
Nov 21, 2023
-
Maps makeover
created by
Nov 13, 2023
-
Making search strings using advanced search
created by
Nov 01, 2023
-
Popular items: creating explore panes
created by
Oct 25, 2023
-
Creating a slideshow for spooky season–or any reason!
created by
Oct 17, 2023
Want more tips?
Sign up for the emails!
How helpful was this page?