Replicating saved searches

fbennett
Doing support and teaching work in a dozen-plus thesis bibliographies this term, I'm using Saved Search quite a bit.

As far as I can tell, there isn't a way to replicate a set of search conditions across multiple group libraries? If I'm missing something, I'd be very grateful for pointers.

If I'm not, then it would save a lot of time in this particular case. No strong preferences on how it might be implemented: drag-and-drop would be nice, but if the Advanced Search pane just remembered its last set of parameters (so that they can be saved into multiple libraries in succession), that would also serve well.

With complex condition sets, it's sometimes a toss-up between saving the search by hand repeatedly, and just ploughing through the data in each library to find target items. If saved searches could be replicated, things that are very cumbersome to do across libraries would get a lot easier.

(Here's hoping that I have missed something ...)
  • bwiernik
    Dragging saved searches between libraries, ala dragging collections, would be really nice.
  • adamsmith
    I was thinking that initially, too, but then I was wondering if the functionality isn't too ambiguous: Would you be dragging the saved search parameters (what Frank wants) or the items in the saved search (which might also be useful)?

    It would seem like just making the "Search in ..." drop-down changeable when editing saved searches would be a very low cost solution (altough I suppose the question then is whether that moves or copies the saved search)?

    Or, of course, a search history (which we've discussed for quick search) that exists for Advanced Search, too, the way Frank suggests. That might be nice because it adds most, but without having thought through code & GUI consequences might also be most demanding.

    Just thinking out loud here. I agree that having the functionality somehow would be very nice.
  • fbennett
    For the current project, I replicated the searches directly in SQL. Saved a great deal of time, but probably not the UX we're after. :-)
  • erazlogo
    How about Control-Click -> Duplicate Saved Search? I'd love this feature too.
  • adamsmith
    And then allow you to select in which library to search among other things -- yes, I think that would work very nicely and I think that should be pretty low cost dev-wise.
  • bwiernik
    I also think that drag-and-drop with a popup menu allowing for a choice of copying just the search terms or the search terms + items would also be intuitive and pleasant to use.
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