Display options
Sort your search results / Format options / Preferences
If you do a search that retrieves a large number of records, you will see a blue display box listing the first ten of these records in order by publication year, with the most recent ones first. But if this order doesn't suit you, there are other options.
For example: do a keyword search, entering the word Mennonite and choosing the Subject field. You retrieve over 100 records, of which you can view ten at a time. They are listed in order by publication year. But notice that some of the columns have underlined headings :
If you click on the Author heading, your search results will be re-ordered alphabetically by author's name. Likewise with the Title heading, using the first word in the title. To go back to sorting by date, click on Year.
Format options
Above your list of search results, you'll see a display like this :
The default setting of our catalog places groups of records in a blue box with columns, which it calls Brief Table view. That display is adequate, but you need not accept it; there are several choices. With the search on Mennonite used above, try clicking on one of the other Format options -- for example, the Card Catalog view.
Now, instead of the blue box with columns, you have a list of works in a text format, showing the author, title and call number (the Brief view-table format does not show call numbers). Also, the underlined links are active, so clicking on Yoder, John Howard will bring up a list of all other works in our collection by that author.
You might also try the Citation format option, which shows publishing data for each work in your results set. To go back to the blue-box format, click on Brief Table view.
Preferences
If you wish, you can decide on your favorite Sort and Format options, and then have them saved for you. If you are not logged in, these choices will be saved only until the end of your search session. But if you are logged in with your own user ID barcode number, these choices will be saved permanently (until you change them) and will be seen every time you log in (for help with your login, click here). The Preferences link is found near the top of the page.
You are presented with several choices. You may first choose No. of brief records per page. If your search retrieves a whole lot of records, you can decide how many you wish to view at once, in a short-form display. The default setting is 10.
You may also choose Max no. of records for Auto Full. That apparently meaningless expression indicates that you have the option of viewing all of your records in full display, not a short form; each complete bibliographic record will be presented, one after another. It seems some people prefer this. The default is set at 0.
You can also choose Format, one of those from the options described above. The default is the blue box called Brief Table View, but you could choose one of the other options instead.
The last choice involves authority records, and we recommend that you leave that option set on Yes.
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