Multi Facet Searching Bug in Encore

At the AAC meeting, a question was asked about problems with Encore when trying to combine mutlitple facets. There is one long time bug in Encore that I am aware of when trying to refine by a library location and the Children or Adult and Young adult location. Innovative is aware of the issue, but has not been able to fix it yet. There may be additional problems with combining facets that I am unaware of. If you come across other examples where combining facets produces incorrect results, please let me know. Below is a description and work around for the location bug. I have also posted this on the OWLSnet home page under the "InfoSoup Things" heading - https://owlsnet.org/owlsnet/multi-facet-searching-bug-encore

Encore has several bugs and/or limitations when selecting multiple facets from the "Refine by" sidebar.

The biggest problem is that (in the basic search) you cannot combine a Library Location with the Children or Young Adult location. It treats the two locations like an “or” search rather than an "and" search.

If you want to use the Children or Adult & Young Adult location facet, the only current work around that I know of is to do an advanced search with your keyword(s) and select Children or Adult & Young Adult from the location field. On the results page, you can then select your library and any other facets (other than another location).

You could select your library from the Advanced Search and the Children or Adult & Young Adult facet from the sidebar, but in that case, you would not be able to use Availability facet to limit to items available at your library.

As an example, if you wanted to know how many books (or DVDs etc.) on apples are in the children’s section of your library and currently available (at your library) here is how you would search.

1. Go to the Advanced search page and enter your Keyword(s), in this example "Apples"

2. Select Children from Location and enter the search*

4. From the results page, select your library from the sidebar location facet

5. Select Books from the Format facet - (At this point you can select any additional facets such as format, genre or limit by date, etc…)

6.Select Available from Availability facet to limit to items in at your library.

*you could add format and date limits from the advanced search page, but that limits your ability on the result page to add or clear the format without going back to the advanced search, which would then clear your library selection from the location facet.

If you come across other Encore weirdness, please let me know. Thanks,

Evan