Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the relationship of Yufind to Orbis?

• Why is an item sometimes displayed as "unavailable" even though it is available, at least in a supervised reading room?

• Why haven't you implemented all of the features included in the VuFind source code?

• What is the difference between "Cite this" and the Refworks and Endnote citation buttons?

• What are "kits"?

• Why are some call numbers missing from the facets?

• What's up with "/" as call number?

What is the relationship between Yufind and Orbis?

What we think of as Orbis is actually Yale library catalog data presented through the Voyager "integrated library system" (i.e., a suite of catalog management software licensed by Yale). What Yufind does is to take data from Voyager's underlying relational tables, reindex them through a Lucene Solr server, and re-present them in new and interesting ways. This enables us to integrate things like spelling suggestions, relevancy ranking, "more like this" recommendations, and various Web APIs.

Why is an item sometimes displayed as "unavailable" even though it actually is available, at least in a supervised reading room?

In the list (index) view, the green and red availability indicators refer only to immediate circulation availability. To get a more nuanced report (including whether an item may be consulted in a reading room), click from the index through to the individual record.

Why haven't we implemented all features available in the VuFind source code?

The original Vufind code base was designed to work with Villanova University's local collection and software/hardware environment. While much of our environment is similar to Villanova's (e.g., we use the same Voyager Integrated Library System and Solaris database servers), Yale has a very different kind of collection and a very different set of end-users. We are working to implement as many of the appropriate features as possible, and even create new ones that can be contributed back to the developer community.

What is the difference between "Cite this" and the Refworks or Endnote citation buttons?

The "Cite this" button launches a script that captures key fields from the bibliographic record, formats them according to APA and MLA style manuals, and then offers them for copying and pasting from a pop-up text window to be pasted into your bibliography, etc. The Refworks and Endnote citation buttons, by contrast, save data to a file that is stored on your computer's hard drive. These can then upload this file into the Refworks or Endnote citation management tools, and integrated into bibliographies or in-line references as desired. We are working on a script that will automatically open Refworks and upload new references without any intervention of the end-user.

I see facets and icons referring to "kits". What are these?

"Kits" refer to collections of mixed materials. These include what you might think of as a kit, e.g., a child's chemistry set, but more typically in the library context these are boxes of manuscript and archival materials. We will soon change the name to something like "mixed manuscript materials".

 

There's a book that I know is in the library's collection, but I can't find it through the call number facet. Why is this?

Currently, the call number facet is limited to a subset of records classified according to the Library of Congress classification system. We plan to expand the facet (or add new facets) to include other kinds of notation such as Old Yale classification.

Why does a slash ("/") appear as a call number facet, and why does generate an error when I click on it?

Some call numbers are stored with a slash at the beginning of the string, and the system interpret this as a non-textual symbol. We are working to fix this. In the mean time, simply ignore the slash (i.e., don't click on it).