Search Systems: My Record Collection
My collection of vinyl records definitely needs a search system. I may not have a ton of records, but having the option of categorizing or searching my records by genre, release year, band member or even record color, sounds like a music nerd’s dream.
As I alluded to above, the great thing about records in relation to search systems is that records already have searchable categories built right into them, and it’s these types of categories that I would index for my search. In my table, I broke down an album by the metal band Baroness into 29 different categories or content components. So for instance, if I search for the song, “A Horse Called Golgotha,” I would expect the Blue Album to show up in my search results since that is the only record in my collection that houses that particular song; if I search for “John Baizley,” every Baroness record in my collection should appear in my search results since John Baizley has been the singer/guitarist of Baroness for the band’s entire career.
Furthermore, I’d want to include search zones for my record collection. These could include “Genre,” “Format,” and “Decade.” By employing a genre search zone, I can better focus my search on all records that fall under the metal category (and there are a ton because I’m a bit of a metal nerd).
A high precision search algorithm will be key to my search system. I have a finite number of records, and searching through them means my main goal is to narrow down my collection into either easy-to-manage categories or finding the exact record I’m searching for. Applying a high recall search algorithm is completely counterproductive to my needs.
Typing an artist name into the search function should pull up an automatic drop down menu that displays the artist’s name with a photo, and then the most recent albums with cover thumbnails organized in reverse chronological order. The album cover, album title, and album release date should all appear within this drop down menu. Typing an artist name into the search function and then hitting enter or clicking on the search button should pull up a similar list to the drop down menu, but in more detail; albums organized in reverse chronological order with a detailed album cover thumbnail with release date, record label, record type (LP or 45”) and complete track listing.
A search on a far less granular level should nonetheless help me narrow down my scope and ultimately lead me to the record I’m looking for. A search by genre such as “metal” should pull up every record in my collection that falls under that category, ordered in reverse chronological order by release date. However, I should have a feature in my search that allows me to narrow that search by sub-genre—progressive metal, thrash metal, sludge metal, stoner meal, black metal—with the number of releases in each category; this would be similar to Amazon’s left navigation in their search results.
If I were to get stuck with a genre that produced zero results, I should receive a prompt similar to, “Maybe you’d be interested in…” and then list related genres of music. I could see this type of suggested results feature being helpful when I’m in the mood for a particular type of music, but I might not have a record in that particular sub-genre. There should be no dead ends in my search system.