Search features and details

kristacook wrote:... I'd also like to know if Preach My Gospel is one of the resources searched under the "Search Gospel Library" feature. There does not appear to be an html version online yet and there isn't even a complete PDF so I'm wondering if the only way to search it is chapter by chapter in the PDF's if I want to do a keyword search online....

(Note: My Branch President has given every member a copy of Preach My Gospel and a copy of the complete Preach My Gospel DVD's that accompany it.)

Preach My Gospel is indeed available online in a complete PDF. The PDF is searchable using the normal PDF search in your PDF reader. The complete PDF can be found in the Gospel Library at http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,49 ... -1,00.html. From the Gospel Library home page, there is a paragraph and link on the home page, as well as a shortcut on the right side of the page.

It is a good question, however, why the Search feature does not seem to find the Preach My Gospel page. I can understand why the text itself might not be searchable, since it is not in HTML format, but rather PDF. But it certainly seems that a search for "Preach My Gospel" (which yields 153 hits when quoted) would find the page I linked to above. It doesn't.

kristacook wrote:What resources are included under the "Support Materials" on the Gospel Library Search feature? I have no idea what is being searched because there does not appear to be any information on what "Support Materials" includes. I can't focus any search without knowing this.

From the main Gospel Library Page you can go to the Support Materials Page by using the link on the left side. On the Support Materials Page you can see the varioius subcategories; each of those subcategory pages shows the materials on those pages. So browsing the Support Materials area should give you a good idea of the kinds of materials featured there, in case you want to filter a search to focus on results from the Support Materials.

kristacook wrote:I know the Handbook isn't online – at least not an official up-to-date version on lds.org. . .

Fragments of the Handbook are online and available to ordinary people from the Church Distribution Center. I know this because I have the portion that deals with Relief Society. There does not appear to be any way to search the fragments using the Gospel Library Search feature online. Is there, or have I missed something?

There doesn't seem to be any place to identify what fragments of the Handbook exist online or am I missing something? Wouldn't this be a useful feature on lds.org? I think it would be.

The fragments of the Handbook that are available to ordinary people are excerpts from Book 2. There are very few fragments of Book 1 (for Bishops and Stake Presidents) available online, and I doubt that this will change. That information is more sensitive and is needed by a much smaller audience, so in my opinion it is wise to keep its distribution tightly controlled.

As for the excerpts from Book 2, I'm not sure what fragments are actually available online. They can be ordered online at ldscatalog.com (for example, the Relief Society handbook section), but I can't find the actual text anywhere on lds.org. If that is true, that explains why they aren't searchable. The Gospel Library search can only search pages that are actually in the Gospel Library.

If somehow the Handbook fragments are available online, they are hidden very well. You seemed quite definitive in saying that portions were available online. Could you please provide a link to one or more of these fragments?

kristacook wrote:I know the Handbook isn't online ...

That is correct.

Fragments of the Handbook are online and available to ordinary people from the Church Distribution Center. I know this because I have the portion that deals with Relief Society. There does not appear to be any way to search the fragments using the Gospel Library Search feature online. Is there, or have I missed something?

Although parts of Handbook 2 (the Relief Society section you mentioned, the Gospel Teaching and Leadership section, and some others) are available through the Distribution Center, they are not online and are not part of the Gospel Library Search feature online.

The Church has issued a series of Guidebooks, many intended for branches. These are online and are part of the Gospel Library Search feature.

There doesn't seem to be any place to identify what fragments of the Handbook exist online or am I missing something? Wouldn't this be a useful feature on lds.org? I think it would be.

Nothing from the Church Handbook of Instructions (CHI) Book 1 or 2 is available online at lds.org. Almost everything else is available.

What resources are included under the "Support Materials" on the Gospel Library Search feature? I have no idea what is being searched because there does not appear to be any information on what "Support Materials" includes. I can't focus any search without knowing this.

Here is a partial list:

Branch Guidebook
Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders' Guidebook
Guidebook for Parents of Leaders and Youth
A Parent's Guide
Family Guidebook

Teaching Guidebook
Improving Gospel Teaching: A Leader's Guide
Teaching, No Greater Call: ...

The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, Parts A and B
Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood: Basic Manual for Priesthood Holders, Parts A and B
Information for Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders on Curriculum: 2005 through 2008

Family Home Evening Resource Book
Gospel Art Picture Kit
Young Women Personal Progress: ...

Gospel Principles
True to the Faith
The Family: A Proclamation to the World
Old Testament Stories
New Testament Stories
Book of Mormon Stories
Doctrine and Covenants Stories

Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Children's Songbook ...
The Primary Sharing Time and Children's Sacrament Meeting program guides

I'd also like to know if Preach My Gospel is one of the resources searched under the "Search Gospel Library" feature. There does not appear to be an html version online yet and there isn't even a complete PDF

The 244 page pdf version of Preach My Gospel at lds.org appears to be complete and is searchable. I do not believe it is included yet in the Gospel Library Search feature.

I hope this answers some of your questions. I did not know the answer to most of them, but a few minutes at lds.org solved the puzzle.

Thanks! I've been heavily accessing the Compressed Audio Files and assumed http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,8 ... -1,00.html was the only access. It lists the separate chapter PDF's but not the complete version of the text in one file except as a downloadable zip file -- in addition to the MP3 files of course.

Alan_Brown wrote:From the main Gospel Library Page you can go to the Support Materials Page by using the link on the left side. On the Support Materials Page you can see the varioius subcategories; each of those subcategory pages shows the materials on those pages. So browsing the Support Materials area should give you a good idea of the kinds of materials featured there, in case you want to filter a search to focus on results from the Support Materials.

In most library databases there are help pages (Which librarians use extensively causing people to assume they are brilliant researchers) including a "list of resources" contained in the databases. I can make an inference that the Support Materials Page is probably what the Search Gospel Library function does under "Support Materials" but I like to be certain. I emphasize Reference Work in my studies so retrieval and access issues are crucial.

Alan_Brown wrote:
If somehow the Handbook fragments are available online, they are hidden very well. You seemed quite definitive in saying that portions were available online. Could you please provide a link to one or more of these fragments?

One that leaps to mind is the one I found yesterday while reviewing the 2007 Worldwide Leadership Training:

"Leaders' Responsibilities

Leaders have a responsibility to teach, whether they are in councils or interviews or worship services. They also have a responsibility to ensure that teacher development and effective gospel learning are ongoing in the lives of members.

To that end, the First Presidency issued a letter dated November 17, 2006, discontinuing the positions of ward and stake teacher improvement coordinators. Accompanying the letter was a list of "Leaders' Responsibilities for Teacher Improvement." We trust that with the principles taught in this broadcast, together with the suggestions and resources stated in the letter, priesthood and auxiliary leaders will counsel together to improve gospel teaching and learning. It should not be necessary to hold special meetings for teacher improvement other than in your councils and interviews from time to time as needed."

This is from Boyd K. Packer at http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,7 ... ,00.html#1. I am assuming that given it is an obvious policy/procedure/guideline it is now part of the Handbook although it did originate in a letter. I don't have any way of knowing if this was one of the letters read in Sacrament Meeting or not. "Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment" http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,4690-1,00.html is another obvious example. My copy of the Relief Society Handbook still has all the old Homemaking material in it but this material supersedes it.

Obviously, the entire Handbook should not be available online to everyone for the reasons you mention, but a great deal of it does apply to ordinary members. I was sick on a recent Sunday, my husband told me an official letter was read in Sacrament Meeting instructing members not to use visual aids in Sacrament talks or ask the congregation to look up scriptures during a Sacrament talk. My husband is very reliable but I would like to read the official letter or at least be able to look up the specific wording. This guidance is aimed directly at members.

Library examples that come to mind are the "List of Sections Affected" in the Code of Federal Regulations or pocketpart supplements to legal texts. When things are fluid and changing constantly, like most administrative materials, a quick reference area to make certain you are up-to-date can be crucial in doing an accurate search.

kristacook wrote:Thanks! I've been heavily accessing the Compressed Audio Files and assumed http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,8 ... -1,00.html was the only access. It lists the separate chapter PDF's but not the complete version of the text in one file except as a downloadable zip file -- in addition to the MP3 files of course.

Perhaps it isn't as obvious as it should be, but the complete PDF (one PDF file containing all 244 pages of the manual) is indeed available on that page near the very top. You get to the complete PDF by clicking on the appropriate language link -- the complete PDF is not in the table below.

A big thanks to Alan for addressing most of my questions. I've got more.

1. My question about search terms is still on my mind. Most library databases and materials will either tell you if it uses a "controlled vocabulary" or not and provide it if it does. I can't determine if the Church materials do. There are no "help pages" in the Church's search interface that answer this quesion.

2. The Gospel Library search interface has changed over the years. I specifically remember "proximity searching" being available at one time. It no longer is. I found this feature to be extremely useful for difficult, targeted searches. Other useful standard search techniques that are missing include boolean terms. Google and others have integrated a simple boolean search interface into its Advanced Search feature that is useful for serious searchers but simple enough for ordinary people. How about wildcards and truncation?

3. It does not appear that pictures (or picture captions) are indexed or am I missing something? The only way to search pictures seems to be a "Search Gospel Library" for a general topic and then look up the result in PDF's to see if a particular picture is included somewhere in the article.

This was critical to me in one of my wards because I had to do the bulletin. My ward did not use stationary so I had to select a picture and quote for the cover. After a couple of weeks, my Bishop stipulated that he wanted the Savior on each bulletin cover but I could continue to tailer the quote to the theme chosen for the meeting. Well, you can imagine that I used up all the pictures in the Gospel Art Picture Kit pretty fast. I had to learn how to copy pictures from the church magazine PDF's and manipulate them so I could place them on the cover. Another crucial component of that was determining if I could use the picture at all given copyright laws and other restrictions. (I got very familiar with the fine print.) I was desperate for a picture index especially one that indexed according to topic and not just picture title and artist. Any picture index or picture search feature forthcoming on lds.org?

4. I'd also like to be able to search scriptures specifically -- I mean ones quoted in materials like Sunday School Manuals and church magazines. I've tried to manipulate the "Search Gospel Library" to do what I want but I don't have much confidence in my searches given the limitations of the search interface. Some church materials use abbreviated scriptures like 2 Ne for 2 Nephi. I'm also concerned about whether my searches can access things like 2 Nephi, chapter 5 verse 4 if the quote is listed as 2 Nephi 5:1-6 in the materials. A sensitive scripture search feature would be much appreciated on lds.org -- something like http://scriptures.byu.edu/ which is marvelous, but where it searches other materials besides Conference addresses.

kristacook wrote:"To that end, the First Presidency issued a letter dated November 17, 2006, discontinuing the positions of ward and stake teacher improvement coordinators. Accompanying the letter was a list of "Leaders' Responsibilities for Teacher Improvement." We trust that with the principles taught in this broadcast, together with the suggestions and resources stated in the letter, priesthood and auxiliary leaders will counsel together to improve gospel teaching and learning. It should not be necessary to hold special meetings for teacher improvement other than in your councils and interviews from time to time as needed."

This is from Boyd K. Packer at http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,7 ... ,00.html#1. I am assuming that given it is an obvious policy/procedure/guideline it is now part of the Handbook although it did originate in a letter. I don't have any way of knowing if this was one of the letters read in Sacrament Meeting or not.

Well, this is not really an example of any portion of the Handbook being available online. Rather, it is a reference to a letter (and not the letter itself) that was sent to bishops and stake presidents (and was not read in sacrament meetings), and which covers material that will almost certainly be in the Handbook, Book 2, when the new Book 2 comes out.

I think this question is heading towards the question of how much of the Handbook is available online, which (as has been previously mentioned) is not the province of this forum. There are many reference to the Handbook throughout the Church's public websites, but that does not mean that the Handbook or even an index to the Handbook will ever be online.

kristacook wrote:Obviously, the entire Handbook should not be available online to everyone for the reasons you mention, but a great deal of it does apply to ordinary members. I was sick on a recent Sunday, my husband told me an official letter was read in Sacrament Meeting instructing members not to use visual aids in Sacrament talks or ask the congregation to look up scriptures during a Sacrament talk. My husband is very reliable but I would like to read the official letter or at least be able to look up the specific wording. This guidance is aimed directly at members.

I think this is an excellent suggestion. Those official letters that are specificially designated to be read in sacrament meetings should be available online. There is no issue of confidentiality, since the general public is invited to attend sacrament meetings. But if you miss that one meeting for whatever reason, you miss hearing the message that was important enough for the Church to send out tens of thousands of copies of the letter, and devote several hundred hours of time to reading in all the units of the Church.

So it would be helpful to have a respository of such letters available (and searchable) on lds.org.

Alan_Brown wrote:I think this question is heading towards the question of how much of the Handbook is available online,

I thought the entire handbook was online, but required a special login to access, just like the online Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders that only bishops, stake presidents, etc. have access to. Since I have never been a branch president, bishop, or stake president I've not had a way to check this out. Then again, maybe I misunderstood what my bishop was talking about when he seemed to make reference to the handbook being online. Regardless, It isn't something that is ever likely to be posted to the 'Net for general access, so how to search it is a moot point.

jbh001 wrote:I thought the entire handbook was online, but required a special login to access, just like the online Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders that only bishops, stake presidents, etc. have access to. Since I have never been a branch president, bishop, or stake president I've not had a way to check this out. Then again, maybe I misunderstood what my bishop was talking about when he seemed to make reference to the handbook being online. Regardless, It isn't something that is ever likely to be posted to the 'Net for general access, so how to search it is a moot point.

I'm quite sure the Handbook is not available online. I tend to see every technology-related letter that comes to my stake president, and there has been nothing along these lines.

jbh001 wrote:I thought the entire handbook was online, but required a special login to access, just like the online Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders that only bishops, stake presidents, etc. have access to.

No, the handbook is not online, even for stake presidents.

Alan_Brown wrote:Well, this is not really an example of any portion of the Handbook being available online. Rather, it is a reference to a letter (and not the letter itself) that was sent to bishops and stake presidents (and was not read in sacrament meetings), and which covers material that will almost certainly be in the Handbook, Book 2, when the new Book 2 comes out.

I think this question is heading towards the question of how much of the Handbook is available online, which (as has been previously mentioned) is not the province of this forum. There are many reference to the Handbook throughout the Church's public websites, but that does not mean that the Handbook or even an index to the Handbook will ever be online.

Family, Home and Personal Enrichment IS the better example for the point I was trying to make. I'm puzzled as to why you would ignore it and focus on only one of the three examples I cited. The section I referred to concerning Enrichment has crucial information such as when the new guidelines were issued and when they took effect, the REASONS things were changed and a COMPARISON of the old and new guidelines -- all crucial information for those responsible for implementing the guidelines. ALL OF THIS IS ONLINE. I don't know what I would have done without it. When I bought my copy of the Relief Society Handbook instructions from the Distribution Center I was dismayed to discover it hadn't been updated since 1998. The copyright date was not, and is not, included on the Distribution Center web site or any other clue as to when it was updated. If I had known this I might not have bought it. (Oops, it is free, I might not have ordered it.) I needed to know what additions or alterations there were in order to fulfill my calling. If these Enrichment guidelines had not been online I don't know what I would have done.

From many of the postings on this issue, I'm perplexed as to why people think that much of the guidance in the Handbook should be considered secret, sacred, confidential and untouchable. It is a detailed, working document that should be, and is, updated regularly to meet the administrative needs of a complex organization trying to function on a day-to-day basis in a complex and and rapidly changing world.

One of my primary goals in any calling I serve in is to make certain that I follow any guidance given by the church, even when I do not understand it completely. But, in order to follow it, I must know what it is. I have tried to make use of the digital tools the church provides us with in any way I can. These tools are a gold mine of information. I have high expectations that hese tools will continue to improve and evolve in positive ways. http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,4690-1,00.html is a wonderful example of digital tools that I would like to see more of on the web site.

I thought this was a forum for suggesting and evaluating ways to improve these digital tools. What I have discovered instead, is that it seems to be dominated by those itching for a fight, selective interpretation of comments and ignorance.

If no one knows anything about the challenges of picture indexing, indexing/abstracting, back-of-the book indexing, embedded indexing, creating and managing databases, boolean searching, proximity search tools, wild cards, truncation and other elementary concepts in information science then I am wasting my time. I'll not visit LDSTech in the future.

Before I respond to any specific issues you raised, let me clarify how this forum works. I fear that you have been sorely disappointed because you had expectations that this forum would operate differently from the way it is designed .

First of all, practically every participant in the forum is a volunteer. We have various callings, experience, and knowledge, but hardly anyone is a Church employee. I certainly am not. Even the Church employees who participate have full-time jobs and manage to carve out a little time to be helpful. I volunteer my time because I like to help people, and I have a desire to help increase the knowledge base of helpful information.

Second, there is no guarantee that any particular question will be answered. However, those of us who have been designated as moderators try to make sure that people aren't left dangling. If we do neglect a question, we appreciate a brief reminder. I've never seen a question ignored when a reminder is posted.

Third, although there are some talented, smart people who participate in the forum, no one is perfect, and we all have areas of strength and weakness. Occasionally someone will post something that is in error; when this happens, usually another forum participant will attempt to get the correct information out. This process requires patience and humility on everyone's part. This forum does extraordinarily well in the level of civility, but even this forum is not the city of Enoch.

Fourth, some questions will be asked where no one on the forum has the expertise or authority to answer it, or the question is just not in the realm of the LDS Technology Forum. When that happens, we just have to move on, and look for answers elsewhere.

kristacook wrote:Family, Home and Personal Enrichment IS the better example for the point I was trying to make. I'm puzzled as to why you would ignore it and focus on only one of the three examples I cited. The section I referred to concerning Enrichment has crucial information such as when the new guidelines were issued and when they took effect, the REASONS things were changed and a COMPARISON of the old and new guidelines -- all crucial information for those responsible for implementing the guidelines. ALL OF THIS IS ONLINE. I don't know what I would have done without it. When I bought my copy of the Relief Society Handbook instructions from the Distribution Center I was dismayed to discover it hadn't been updated since 1998. The copyright date was not, and is not, included on the Distribution Center web site or any other clue as to when it was updated. If I had known this I might not have bought it. (Oops, it is free, I might not have ordered it.) I needed to know what additions or alterations there were in order to fulfill my calling. If these Enrichment guidelines had not been online I don't know what I would have done.

I did try to address two of the three examples you raised. On one of them I made a separate postwhere I completely agreed with you. I apologize for neglecting the third. I agree with you that the Relief Society handled this issue very well, and posted great information to help local leaders with the new policy. I'd love to see more issues handled that way, but I certainly understand that some issues may be more sensitive and won't be handled as publicly. Also, different departments and organizations in the Church may choose to put a different level of emphasis on online resources.

kristacook wrote:From many of the postings on this issue, I'm perplexed as to why people think that much of the guidance in the Handbook should be considered secret, sacred, confidential and untouchable. It is a detailed, working document that should be, and is, updated regularly to meet the administrative needs of a complex organization trying to function on a day-to-day basis in a complex and and rapidly changing world.

I hope I didn't characterize the Handbook that way. I was merely trying to explain that very little of the Handbook is online. That decision was made by those in authority over such matters. Given the tremendous effort the Church has put into the many official web sites of the Church, I am confident that this decision was not made because anyone is lazy or trying to make it hard for faithful saints to do their callings, but that there were very good reasons for that decision. But I don't think anyone on this forum was involved in that decision, and so we can only speculate on the reasons, which doesn't seem particularly useful.

I personally would love to see much more of the Handbook and updates to it posted online, but I respect the authority of those who made those decisions. The information regarding updates flows to local leadership, and those stake presidents and bishops and other local leaders have a responsibility under the current system to distribute that information. The Church makes great efforts to make sure that people have the information they need, but it does not always come in the ways that we might prefer.

kristacook wrote:I thought this was a forum for suggesting and evaluating ways to improve these digital tools. What I have discovered instead, is that it seems to be dominated by those itching for a fight, selective interpretation of comments and ignorance.

I truly apologize if I have appeared to be "itching for a fight"; my only goal was to share what I know and to try to help. I am sorry I gave you that impression, and I freely admit that I am ignorant on many subjects.

kristacook wrote:If no one knows anything about the challenges of picture indexing, indexing/abstracting, back-of-the book indexing, embedded indexing, creating and managing databases, boolean searching, proximity search tools, wild cards, truncation and other elementary concepts in information science then I am wasting my time. I'll not visit LDSTech in the future.

I dare say that these skills exist among the nearly 3000 users, but not all are active every day or every week. I have experience in three or four of them, but am completely ignorant on others. Of course, I am no expert in information science; I have many years of experience in software development. The idea of the forum is that lots of people pool their knowlege to help each other, but it's an imperfect system.

If you do decide to leave, we'll be sorry to see you go. You have raised some important issues, and I thank you for that.

kristacook is expressing some concerns about the availability, or lack thereof, of published Church guidance and other materials on-line and the ability, or inability, to do searches for that information. I agree with her now, and have for some time, that it is really frustrating to find that not enough of very important published information is available on-line or is not in a searchable form. I also think the search tools are not robust enough or very user friendly as is available in numerous other web sources outside the Church.

With that said I have learned to be patient and understanding of the Church’s growth in the area of technologies that have become commonplace or even ubiquitous in the rest of the modern world. The Church is an extremely large organization. Unlike other organizations that can quickly adopt and adapt the latest technologies for their needs, our resources must be and are more frugally managed. I am surprised that the Church has progressed as far and as fast as has been done in the past four years.

Yes, there is room for improvement. The technologies forums are a tool being used to do just that.

There has been discussion about the availability of the Church Handbook of Instructions on-line. I agree it would be nice to have it available. I also understand there are issues that keep it from being available on-line. Most of my thoughts about those issues are speculation and therefore I will not address them. What is evident is that the Church Handbook of Instructions is an evolving document. It has been years since Book 1 was released yet there still is still no companion Book 2. Because the two books are not in sync I can see why the Church has not made either available on-line. (OK, so I let slip some speculation.) Once Book 2 is released I would expect to see sit available on-line some time after that (Ooooh – more speculation).

kristacook wrote:
4. I'd also like to be able to search scriptures specifically -- I mean ones quoted in materials like Sunday School Manuals and church magazines. I've tried to manipulate the "Search Gospel Library" to do what I want but I don't have much confidence in my searches given the limitations of the search interface. Some church materials use abbreviated scriptures like 2 Ne for 2 Nephi. I'm also concerned about whether my searches can access things like 2 Nephi, chapter 5 verse 4 if the quote is listed as 2 Nephi 5:1-6 in the materials. A sensitive scripture search feature would be much appreciated on lds.org -- something like http://scriptures.byu.edu/ which is marvelous, but where it searches other materials besides Conference addresses.

If you go to scriptures.lds.org you can do all kinds of fancy searching. For example, try search for:

2 ne 3:3-4
2 nephi 3:3,4
2 ne. 3:3-4

You can even combine searches so you can type in (for example)

2 ne 3:3-4; Alma 1:2; Mosiah 4:1-10

And it will search for all references together.

It does not do this from the gospel link search but once you are on the scriptures web site it does.

Tom

kristacook wrote: From many of the postings on this issue, I'm perplexed as to why people think that much of the guidance in the Handbook should be considered secret, sacred, confidential and untouchable. It is a detailed, working document that should be, and is, updated regularly to meet the administrative needs of a complex organization trying to function on a day-to-day basis in a complex and and rapidly changing world.

This is by direction of the Priesthood leaders of the Church in cooperation with the correlation department. Your best bet would be to contact them for a clear understanding if you need. Also, you can talk with your local ecclesiastical leader for more input as he can escalate concerns as he sees fit up the ladder to one of the general authorities.