Discovery Search Configuration

When you set up your search configuration, you specify the Discovery search sources and sites that Portfolio will connect to in order to extract and index data. A Discovery search source specifies the search fields to be used by the search source, any match fields that you want to match and merge data on from multiple Discovery source sites, and the frequency with which you want to index data from this search source. A Discovery source site points to specific databases or instances on the Discovery search source from where the data is extracted. By default, Portfolio includes several pre-configured Discovery search sources and sites to handle ILS data, library favorites, rooms content, PDF data, DiXML data, eresource data, and any other MARC data sources that you define.

Once you define your Discovery search sources and sites, you can make the data that is being extracted and indexed from those search sources and sites available for patrons to search by setting up Discovery search targets. When you set up a search target, you define the search sources that are associated with this target. Once you have created a Discovery search target, you can then assign that target to one or more search profiles—making the data from the Discovery search source available to patrons to search.

Search fields are the individual pieces of data that you may want to display in Searching when search results or detailed information about an item are displayed, or as facets, or as part of a Discovery source site. By default, Portfolio delivers many of the search fields already pre-configured.

Display codes provide a way to translate the different types of codes that are used in your database to more user-friendly labels that are displayed in Searching. For example, you might have a location code named “NB” that you may want to display as “North Branch” when Portfolio displays location information. This is especially helpful when differentiating between similar codes from multiple Discovery source sites.

Character Mapping lets you map special characters, such as diacritics, to character pairs that are easier to enter with a standard keyboard. When you create a mapping, the character you map will be normalized both during indexing and also when users input search terms.

This section explains these topics: