Working with results

Vega doesn’t just print an answer. Most questions come back as a card (a small table or chart), and each card carries the actions that make the answer useful: open it in the Items table, download it, save it to a list, or check off the items you want to work with. On most cards the actions live in a menu at the bottom right of the card, whose first line names the set they cover. A “books like…” search has an button: Actions menu there, whose first line reads like message: All 24 items, and a card whose only action is downloading it has the button: Download button. A catalog search and a list of copies have button: Open in Items there instead, and a theme-cluster answer has no card-wide menu; each group has its own actions menu beside its count.

Long cards show a preview. A catalog, copy, or acquisition table shows its first 10 rows and a theme-cluster answer its first 4 groups; the line at the bottom left says how much is showing, such as message: 10 of 263 items. A card with button: Open in Items keeps to its preview: open it to see every match. Any other table has a button naming how many rows it holds, such as button: Show 50, which for a catalog search is at most the 50 Vega was given. On a theme-cluster answer, button: Show all lists every group. button: Collapse folds either one back. Breakdown, trend, and ownership cards show everything at once.

This page covers what those actions do. For the kinds of questions that produce each card, see the overview.

Open a search in Items

A catalog search card, and a list of copies, is a record of what Vega found. Under its title it names the day the search ran, such as message: As of Sep 22, and it shows the filters Vega used as chips: the same chips the Items table uses, such as Topics like mythology beside Topics unlike Greek. The rows are the ones Vega saw that day, and they stay that way, so the conversation always matches Vega’s answer. A filter that names a relative date, such as Last checked out more than 2 years ago, reads that way on the card.

To work with the live result, select button: Open in Items. The Items table opens with those filters applied as chips you can change or remove, and it lists every item that matches today, however many there are. Opening saves nothing. The table’s own button: Download menu exports the result, and to act on it, such as adding it to a list, check the header box and select all matching.

When the answer is copies rather than titles (the copies marked lost, what’s shelved in a location, or what to weed), the card lists copies and opens on the By copy tab. Every list of copies shows the barcode, call number, location, and year, and adds a column for whatever the copies were chosen or ordered by: status, date acquired, or last checked out.

Weeding is done copy by copy, so a weeding answer is one of these lists, with button: Last checked out and button: Acquisition date chips beside any others Vega used. “Not checked out in two years, acquired more than five years ago” becomes a view of your copies you can adjust, sort, and export in full, and a title with one worn copy and one busy one shows only the worn copy. Ask about one section, such as the FIC shelf or the 590s, and the card adds a button: Call number chip for it, so you can see the answer covers that section and no more.

From the day after Vega answered, a card whose filters name a relative date offers two ways in instead of one. (On the day itself both would show the same rows, so it keeps the one button.) button: Open as of Sep 22 pins those dates to the day Vega answered, so the table shows what Vega saw. button: Open as of today keeps them relative, so “more than 2 years ago” counts back from today, which is the one to save as a saved query that keeps up on its own.

A “books like…” search ranks items by similarity rather than filtering them, so there’s nothing for the Items table to re-run. Its card keeps an button: Actions menu that works on the rows it holds.

Open a count in Patrons, Active Loans, or All Holds

When Vega counts patrons, loans, or holds, the card says how many matched, such as message: 23 patrons matched, with the filters as the same chips the Patrons list, Active Loans, or All Holds uses. A count of 1 to 4 reads message: Fewer than 5 patrons matched, because that is all Vega was told, and a count of none reads message: No patrons matched. button: Open in Patrons, button: Open in Active Loans, or button: Open in All Holds opens the table with those filters, where you see who they are. These tables show the library as it is now, so the card opens as of today only: a count of overdue loans opens on today’s overdue loans. A count card has no export of its own; the table it opens has button: Download.

Export

Every other result card exports: from its button: Download menu, from button: Actions ▸ menu item: Export on a “books like…” search, or from each group’s menu on a theme-cluster answer. It downloads the answer as menu item: Excel or menu item: CSV, to open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets, hand to a colleague, or keep as a record. In the Excel file counts and years are numbers and a trend’s periods are dates, so the spreadsheet sorts and charts them.

Two things worth knowing:

You get the whole result, not just what’s on screen. Cards show a preview — the first several rows — to keep the conversation readable, and the export includes the rows the preview hides. A theme-cluster group exports every item in that group. A “books like…” search exports the rows on its card.
The columns fit the question. A “books like…” search exports title, authors, copyright year, topics, copies, and availability. A breakdown exports each group with its count and share, and a trend exports each period with its count.

Save to a list

“Books like…” searches and each group in a theme-cluster answer have menu item: Save to list…: in the card’s button: Actions menu, or in the menu beside each cluster group’s count. For a catalog search, open it in Items, select all matching, and choose button: Add to list in the selection band. It takes the items in the result and adds them to an OPAC list, so a question like “cozy mysteries for reluctant 6th-grade readers” can become a browsable display for students in a couple of clicks.

Select menu item: Save to list…. The dialog: Save to List dialog opens.
In field: List, start typing a list name to pick an existing list, or choose + Create "…" to make a new one.
Select button: Add to list, or button: Create and add for a new list, which creates the list and adds the items in one step.

This action only appears when your library has an OPAC configured and you’re a library manager. It’s the one action that writes something back into Lyra; everything else on a card is read-only.

Build a working set to buy

Acquisition answers are lists of suggestions; Vega never orders anything. Most of the titles aren’t in your catalog yet, so there’s no table to open them in. To turn suggestions into a shopping list, use the checkboxes:

Each row has a checkbox, and the checkbox in the header selects every row the card is showing.
As you select items, a bar appears at the bottom of the screen showing how many you’ve picked, such as message: 3 items selected. It has button: Export acquisition list, which offers Excel or CSV, and a button: Clear button.
Your selection carries across the whole conversation. You can ask for graphic novels for middle schoolers, check a few, then ask for STEM biographies, check a few more, and export the combined set. Switching to a different conversation starts the selection fresh.

The result is a curated shortlist (the specific titles you chose across several answers) rather than the everything-that-matched list the card’s button: Download menu gives you. Both files have the same columns. From there, take the file into your vendor’s ordering system. A list of copies to weed has no checkboxes: open it in Items, where the By copy tab selects, exports, and weeds the copies themselves (see Weeding).

Jump straight to a record

Titles and author names in a result are links:

A title opens that item’s detail page, where you can see copies, circulation history, holds, and edit its metadata.
An author name runs a catalog search for everything you own by that author.

Ownership checks (“do we own anything by Kate DiCamillo?”) link the same way, and so do acquisition suggestions you already own; a suggestion that isn’t in the catalog has no record to open, so its title and authors are plain text. Either way you can go from an answer to the underlying record without re-searching.

See how an answer was found

A catalog search and a list of copies show their filters as chips on the card. Under a “books like…”, breakdown, trend, or cluster card, button: How this was found lists the filters Vega applied, such as the topics it matched or the audience it limited to. Check it when a result is bigger or smaller than you expected.

What’s still not automatic

These actions live on the card so that you decide what happens next. Vega itself only reads and answers; it won’t check items out, edit records, place holds, delete anything, or change settings. Even menu item: Save to list… is an action you choose, never something Vega does on its own. So a result is always safe to look at: nothing changes until you act on it.

Which cards offer which actions

The answer looks like…	Export	Save to list	Checkboxes	Record links
Catalog search	(in Items)	(in Items)		✓
“Books like…” search	✓	✓		✓
Breakdown (by topic, grade, Lexile, etc.)	✓
Trend over time	✓
Ownership check	✓			✓
Copies (weeding, lost, a location)	(in Items)			✓
Acquisition suggestions	✓		✓	✓
Theme clusters	✓ (per cluster)	✓ (per cluster)		✓