Category: Vega Discover: Pilot Review

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MHLS is entering into the testing phase of our development partner work for Vega Discover, Innovative’s new discovery platform and public access catalog. The platform is still in development, and while other development partners have gone live, the platform is in its infancy. We are among the first consortia members to test Vega Discover. The entries below are known issues that we are working with the vendor, Innovative, to resolve. Our role as development partners is to identify issues and enhancements that we would like to see. Once identified, they may be quickly addressed, be reviewed for future enhancement, and possibly dismissed if other development partners do not prioritize a resolution for the product’s roadmap.

Use the search box to find entries.

Knowledge Base > Vega Discover: Pilot Review

“New” confusion

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: The word “date” is used in the facets and sort-by menu to help filter search results. It refers to publication date, although that is not specified. “New Materials” is also used, to refer to cataloging date. It is not intuitive for patrons to understand what these terms mean. Using labels like “release date” and “new to the library” may work better.

Additionally, when searching or filtering by New Materials (cataloging date), the roll-up logic means that even if a patron filters to only one format, if the work has been recently cataloged in any format, the result will still be returned. This could be very confusing. If the patron doesn’t care about eBooks and has already set a facet to limit to the format book, the results should not include entries where the selected format does not contain a new bib record. It will look like the facet isn’t working. 

Reported: 05/15/2022, updated 06/21/2022

Status: MHLS may be able to change the labels for these facets to make them clearer and more informative.

Resolution: TBD

Hyphen logic

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: “I tried to look up the new David Sedaris book Happy-Go-Lucky in each catalog. My exact search was ‘Happy Go Lucky Sedaris.’ In Encore, the correct title was the first result. In Vega, the correct title was the 9th result. Why was Encore more accurate than Vega in this instance?”

It looks like Vega treats hyphenated phrases as one word. In this case, it does not think that the words “happy,” “go,” and “lucky” are in the title because it reads “happy-go-lucky” as one distinct word.

Reported: 06/02/2022

Status: We will report the issue to iii.

Resolution: TBD

Series titles issue

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: With the addition of series links in Vega, there is now the issue that publisher-specific or format-specific series names are being pulled from one bib record and shown for the entire roll-up. These series are more like collections and often apply to only one particular edition instead of the entire work. The series link should show a series name that is true for the entirety of the work, not one particular manifestation.

Additionally, this sometimes leads to a publisher series being displayed for a work and superseding the name of an actual bibliographic series. Patrons may benefit from links to both kinds of series, but they are more likely to want and expect a link to other works in a serialized story.

Not only is this inaccurate at the roll-up level, but we believe that it is not patron-friendly.

Reported: 04/11/2022

Status: MHLS has reported the issue to Innovative and is investigating whether cataloging changes can help differentiate collections from actual series.

Resolution: TBD

This book is part of the Kinsey Millhone Mystery series, but the "G.K. Hall large print book series" tag is preferred in the roll up.

Order and arrangement of the ‘Refine Results’ sidebar filters

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: Some opinions about the arrangement of the sidebar so far include:

  • Location should be near the top. Staffers using the platform often need to search for materials within the building as a patron wants to walk away with a book today, and it is awkward to try to limit by location.
  • Location should be organized alphabetically.
  • Format should be organized alphabetically.

Reported: 12/2/2021, updated 4/21/2022

Status: Mid-Hudson is working on customizing the interface to rearrange the sidebar. Please let us know if you have opinions about the order, language/labels, or any other features of the sidebar by emailing techsupport@midhudson.org or filling out the feedback form.

Resolution: If changes can be made by MHLS, we will update soon.

The current sidebar filter order

Format and Locations currently ordered by most results

Kanopy links missing

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: Kanopy eVideo links are missing for some libraries. Clicking “Check Availability” will provide a list of links for each library, but the list is incomplete.

Reported: 04/12/2022

Status: Kanopy uses unique URLs for each library so each title has 40 separate links. “Check Availability” doesn’t even show them all, just 25 of them. One workaround could be to use a more generic message like “This title is available on Kanopy” or even suppressing Kanopy titles from the catalog until the problem is resolved.

Complete integration for Kanopy is planned but not yet implemented by Innovative.

Additionally, Kanopy has a small number of titles for which they don’t offer MARC records. There are 28,071 titles currently in the collection, but only 27,792 MARC records. It seems that Criterion titles, among others, are not provided.

Resolution: TBD.

Kanopy links, not displaying all 40 libraries

“0 results” bug

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: Occasionally, a search will result in a “0 results found for [keyword].” However, there are items in the catalog with that word. This seems especially likely with short, common words like “it” and “or.”

Reported: 04/01/2022

Status: Refreshing the page will usually resolve the issue. The bug has been reported to Innovative. 

Resolution: This is a known issue. If the bug fixing goes to plan, it will likely be deployed on 5/24/22.

The initial search results
The results after refreshing the page

Confusion around terminology

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: “Concepts” and “Persons” may be confusing to average patrons. This is especially so with “persons,” which includes many entities that are not people such as Hoopla, OverDrive, Scholastic, and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “Topics” and “Contributors” are also used, and it is unclear how they relate to concepts and persons.

Another suggestion is to change the heading “Reader reviews” to “User reviews” since books are not the only items in the card catalog. The same problem also applies to “Reading History.”

Reported: 12/13/2021, updated 4/12/2022

Status: Many of these labels are customizable. MHLS will work on developing more user-friendly labels for various sections of the catalog. Please let us know if you have opinions about language/labels, or any other features of the sidebar by emailing techsupport@midhudson.org or filling out the feedback form.

Resolution: TBD.

Many concepts called variations of "Human-animal relationships."
The topic "Human-animal relationships" found on a resource page. Is this the same as one of those concepts?
A confusing list of persons.

Which libraries have an item on order?

Posted on by Kathryn Brew

Observation: In Encore, patrons and staff can see which individual libraries have a title on order, which can be a helpful piece of information. In Vega, the only information is the “On Order” availability status.

Reported: 1/28/2022

Status: Innovative is working on a way to get the copy/location information for on-order titles out of Sierra.

Resolution: TBA.

No information about how many copies are on order or where