Thesis Department

We record the associated department or departments for any Penn State Thesis or Dissertation in the 699a. Right now, people can search for it via using a MARC field search in the CAT. I did a bunch of testing to see whether there was any way to replicate the functionality without adding this to the index, but each method only works in some circumstances (e.g. only for the last 15 years or only for departments with names which are not also keywords, etc). Indexing it would also allow us to generate a link in the record to take the user to search for more theses by people in that department.

It seems like it would make the most sense to index as a drop-down list, similar to what we do with locations. We wouldn't need any translation table, it would just be generated based on the text of the field, e.g. History, Meteorology, Nuclear Engineering, Plant Sciences, etc. (strip period off the end of the field if exists).

Complication: there are some electronic records with a 699a in them that are not for theses and not connected to us. However we can't rule out all ONLINE records because our ETDAs are online. However, the thesis records all do have an item type of THESIS-[MD] even if it's online, so we can use that for logic.

Indexing

if record contains a 949t == THESIS-M or THESIS-D:
  index 699a

Searching

Advanced search - dropdown field based on existing values.

Display

Display thesis department linked to controlled search for the field's value. Label: Graduate Thesis Department.

Add field below "Additional Creators" in single item view.