Koha Question of the Week: How Do I Make Subject Links Search the Whole Subject in the Catalog?

by Hebah Amin-Headley on Mar 17, 2023

Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: How Do I Make Subject Links Search the Whole Subject in the Catalog?

Answer: Like many things in Koha, a system preference determines what happens when you click on a subject tracing from a record. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, let's use this Magic Tree House record as an example.

The system preference TraceSubjectSubdivisions determines what happens when you click one of those subject headings. If TraceSubjectSubdivisions is set to "Don't include subdivisions for searches generated by clicking on subject tracings," then clicking on the subject "Ireland -- History -- 19th century -- fiction" is only going to search "Ireland," or the topical term in subfield a of the subject tag.

If the expected behavior is to generate a search on the full subject and its subdivisions, TraceSubjectSubdivisions should be set to "Include subdivisions for searches generated by clicking on subject tracings," which will search all the subdivisions. Instead of searching only for "Ireland," the search becomes a subject search for "Ireland" AND "History" AND "19th century" AND "fiction."

This setting applies to searches in both the staff client and the OPAC.

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