Improve Searching In Aprl Digital Library Coming Soon

Kirk Gillis, Executive Director of APS. made a statement earlier about improving the search of the APRL library and within a short period APRL has announced an update.

The current search is quite crude.

Very positive news.

Glad to see the APS is upgrading APRL.

Great news. Really important resource not just for searching APRL but a host of other libraries that I'm a member of, too.

I hope so. I tried the other week to search for some information and as usual I either cant figure it out or it's broken! I got no results at all for information on DP45 - 1867 2d blue colour trial information ( Great Britain ). THEN, try and get someone on the phone - good luck with that. Fingers crossed.

Let's hope that they have implemented the changes required for a smooth interaction with the database.

My biggest gripe is that digital results are shown in the order of the number of copies held for a title. As the database titles increase it gets ever harder to find the title that you are searching for. Who on earth expects search results in that order when we have a perfectly good alphabet!

That said, it is a valuable resource accessible from home or office, which is terrific. GLENN

Update to my email of moments ago... I have just accessed the digital library today and a) the new system is live and b) the search results are in alphabetical order. Yeah! GLENN

At least you get results. Im going to try my search again today. I contacted reference desk for help last week and no update yet….. But, its only been 3 days.

so maybe im doing this wrong.... I've tried searching for:

2d colour trial
Great Britain 2d colour trial
Great Britain 2 pence color trial

I get nothing. Maybe they dont have anything in the library?

I am a member and this is exciting. We have been paying for something that was a bit difficult to
utilize. Bring it to us.

Stamps4Life: I am unsure if "The David Straight Memorial Philatelic Union Catalog" (why the long title!) that you used at the APRL website is being upgraded at this time, as the APS statement that Angore reproduced on 13 May states that it is the DIGITAL LIBRARY search platform that is being changed. GLENN

I have now been using the revamped APRL "Mason Digital Library" of periodicals for two days and am generally impressed by the changes. I note the odd point…

1) I find the font size used below images of title covers to be far too small for my personal viewing comfort, especially on longer sessions.

2) The system seems unable to cope with titles that incorporate an apostrophe. So "Bull's Eyes" reads "Bull [space] s Eyes".

3) Printing or saving the document is now a longer process that involves clicking on "More Information", choosing "Source" and going to the old version of the database to print / save as you used to do. Maybe this will be incorporated into the new database if there is a phase two? Perhaps new titles being added from now on will automatically incorporate a more logical procedure?

4) My final observation is that English language titles starting with "The" generally have the word excluded, but foreign language titles includes "The" in their language, so "El Quetzel" is to be found under E, while "The Essay Proof journal" is also under E. However, there are four English language titles that start "The", so an inconsistency of approach.

I applaud the upgrade.

GLENN

duplicate

Stamps4Life - The library searches library materials. I doubt it would find anything for what you provided. It has a very simple search capability with no intelligence. I suspect it is name that way since David L. Straight left money in his estate to establish it.