I guess the only way, if you're starting from an external service, would
be having your app do the search on your local corpus, for each
suggestion, before displaying the suggestions, so it can provide
'yes/no' or a hit count next to each one.
I do see how in some cases the page can serve the user even if there's a
0 local hit count. Depends on what the user wants. In some cases they're
looking for local materials, and I think are likely to be frustrated if
they don't know if there are any until they click (the traditional
'browse list', which I am NOT advocating, generally puts a local hit
count next to each heading).
Jonathan
Demian Katz wrote:
>> Interesting -- I was thinking recommendations from your actual local
>> corpus, but from Identities/Terminologies might be even better -- but is
>> there any way for the system to pre-warn you whether that particular
>> Author or Term is actually found in the local corpus, to prevent you
>> from clicking on it and getting 0 hits?
>>
>
> I'm not aware of a good way to avoid the zero hits situation -- but a "0 hits" page doesn't need to be the end of the search -- if you incorporate good recommendations (i.e. links to WorldCat or various electronic resources) into your empty results screen, the user still may be able to benefit from the recommendations even if they don't find materials in the local catalog.
>
> - Demian
>
>
Received on Wed Apr 28 2010 - 15:17:05 EDT