This feature capture the work planned for the Core functional team

The elements Call number, and Call number type are implemented in the Holdings and Item records as of Q4 2018.

Use cases:
Multiple times daily catalogers and other library staff need to search by call number; system needs to search normalized version, not exact text string.

Several libraries have expressed a requirement on being able to search by normalized call number - besides search on call number as an exact string, we'd also need search where we handle removing of misc. qualifiers, and more.

Summary of requirements discussed with SMEs:
So this would be the best solution for the searching of call numbers:

1. String/phrase index for prefix and call number (no keyword index)

2. Searching must be possible without spaces and/or special characters

3. Additionally: exact search (with spaces and special characters)

   • could be customized (per tenant) with a selection list of special characters to be taken into account in a search.

4. No automatically truncation

   • Wildcards

   • Wildcard for explicitely right truncation, e.g. “*”

   • Wildcard for exact one character, e.g. “!”

5. Call numbers

   • geo 11

   • geo 12

   • geo 100

   • geo 123

6. Search variants

   • geo 1! → geo 11 and geo 12

   • geo 1!! → geo 100 and geo 123

   • geo 1* → geo 11 and geo 12 and geo 100 and geo 123

7. Wildcard for 0-n characters, e.g. “#”

8. Character classes

   • germ 3[567]0* = germ 350* | germ 360* | germ 370*

9. Boolean operators, also to combine different search criteria

   • AND

   • OR

   • NOT

Documentation:

• Notes on call number search (p.13-17) in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FMl-_oNR6k-wVDQrZeMT_V9-ZDDaZBzdiipx0OQii9E/edit#

• Discuss post: https://discuss.folio.org/t/call-number-normalization-sort/2570

• uChicago’s OLE solution - https://catalog.lib.uchicago.edu/vufind/Alphabrowse/Home?from=A&source=lcc

  • the solution differentiates between several common schemes, defines the ordering behavior for each, and defaults to alpha-numeric for anything else. It is extensible

• uChicago's code (developed by Tod Olson): https://github.com/solrmarc

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Examples:
tit=letters per=goethe,*
(Title must contain “letters”, author is Goethe,* ‑ standard operator is AND)
per=bach,j* NOT sgn=mus*
(Author is bach,j*, call number does not start with “mus”)
tit cookbook AND (sgn=math* OR sgn=comp*)
(the cookbook series from O’Reilly)

Some more complex examples from GBV libraries *before *normalization (added by @Felix Hemme):

• 8 G.B.439 :6

• JUR:R III:54:(1):Schm:1850

• 94 NF 14/1:3792-3835

• 1990/146 4°

• 426/083 4° SH 34

• Z 557: 54.1961/62,7-12

• Y 43839 (2017/18)