Yes, we have gone back and forth over what to include in the results display as well. At the moment, our alpha list is very much like yours * just name of collection and creator. However, like you, for the subject area and other search results we show more information, specifically:
Collection title
creator
dates
abstract
subjects
genres (which we are calling "types of material" for the lay person)
If it was an advanced search for "item title" (a search of the individual unittitles), then we also display all the unittitles for the finding aid. We're not sure how helpful this is (my gut feeling is not very, since the person would still have to click further to the full finding aid to get the box numbers etc).
Also, when the person has done a search for a word or phrase, that word or phrase is highlighted in the search results list (though not when they go to the full finding aid itself, haven't figured out a way to do that yet).
Michele C.
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Michele R. Combs
[log in to unmask]
Manuscripts Processor
Special Collections Research Center
Syracuse University Library
222 Waverly Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244
(315) 443-2697
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>>> [log in to unmask] 5/12/2007 9:18 AM >>>
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I am interested in hearing also from people what their displays look
like in the search results. For example, we have found that while
Alphabetical browse by collection name is a very easy way for staff to
quickly get to known collections, it's not useful for someone unfamiliar
with collections, because what they get is basically a list of names and
links to abstracts and finding aids. I've thought about expanding this
list to include abstracts on the initial browse page (this is what we do
with our subject results, and it seems to work much better for people).
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