Talis Forums

gi06 · Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: Prism Logs

Hello
Are the Search terms used by borrowers logged by Prism?

Ben Elwell · Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 3:33 pm Post subject:

Not exactly by Prism (in fact Prism seems to log very little).

However, on our Unix system we did find that the Apache server does keep a rather handy access log. Ours is located at /usr/local/apache/apache_1.3.26/logs/access_log

It records the IP address and requested URL from every request made, and some of these URLs include the full search terms, so with a bit of command line magic you can pull details out of it.

I am assuming your setup will be fairly similar to ours. Even though Prism runs from the Tomcat server, we still have the initial Apache server to redirect initial requests (and for load balancing when we used to have two Prism servers)
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Ben Elwell
LIS Systems Support
University of Wolverhampton

Gwynith · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:06 pm Post subject:

We have a Windows based Prism system, and search terms are logged (among other things) in the stderr.log file, in tomcat/logs on our Inner Prism server.

This is probably only relevant to a few people, as I do not know if this file exists on a Unix based Prism
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Gwynith Butlin
Systems Support Assistant
Northamptonshire Libraries & Information Service

Terry Willan · Joined: 06 May 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Talis

Search terms are recorded in the Catalina.out file but, as with the other suggestions, it will take some parsing. The file is usually found in /usr/local/tomcat/jakarta-tomcat-4.1.29/logs

Search queries are recorded thus:

SRUTalisLMS - Search[keyword]
[GC 259050K->241241K(432832K), 0.0219933 secs]
[search:0.850 xmlload: 0.089 lmsload: 0.699] http://172.30.3.226:210/prod_talis?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&maximumRecords=10&startRecord=1&recordSchema=marcxml&query=%28++%22cognitive%22+%29+and+%28+%22psychology%22+%29+and+collection+%3D+%221%22+or+sort%3D0

With Talis Prism 3 you can use Google Analytics, which gives you query terms and many other ways to analyse use of your catalogue.
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Terry Willan
Business Development Manager
Talis
Tel: +44 (0)870 400 5038
Mobile: +44 (0)776 974 0077
Email: Terry.Willan@talis.com

gi06 · Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:38 pm Post subject:

Thanks for everyone's reply; been most useful.
I have ended up extracting the terms from the catalina.out file as Terry suggests.
We were in the process of implementing Prism3 when we noticed that most of the stuff we view as essential just hadn't been catered for. Having Google Analytics integration doesn't compensate for a lack of single sign on to Prism 3, slow response times to searches, lack of administration area, no z39.50 searching etc, so i doubt we will be implementing it anytime soon.
Iain

alisonkershaw · Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Talis

Iain Hi

Following on from your points around Talis Prism 3, I wanted the opportunity to update you on the points you raise.

Following information gathering webinars, we have now published postings on the blog around both cross searching and Talis Keystone Single Sign-On.

The Talis Prism 3 Development Webinar held on 13th October discussed the improvements made to search response times, and the Admin Interface (we will shortly be publishing a blog post detailing the Admin Interface functionality). The next Talis Prism 3 Development Update Webinar has been scheduled for the 18th November, if you would like to register please register your interest by emailing me.

If you require any further information, please let me know.

Kind regards

Alison
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Alison Kershaw
Head of Products
Tel: 0870 400 5042
Mobile: 07525128 782
www.talis.com

Talis Information Ltd
Knights Court, Solihull Parkway
Birmingham Business Park, B37 7YB

gi06 · Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:40 am Post subject:

Hello Terry
Is there any document that tells me what constitutes a keyword search, an author search etc?
Also i have noticed that the same search appears a number of times in the logs, one after the other. Would i be correct to count these as individual searches or are they a log of the search process?

Terry Willan · Joined: 06 May 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Talis

Iain,

The Talis Alto Index Maintenance Manual , page 31, tells you what constitutes a keyword search, an author search etc.

In the Catalina.out log file I believe it is just author searches that appear to be logged twice, because two queries are initiated for an author search, one to the authority service (to look for cross-reference matches) and one to the bibliographic data.
_________________
Terry Willan
Business Development Manager
Talis
Tel: +44 (0)870 400 5038
Mobile: +44 (0)776 974 0077
Email: Terry.Willan@talis.com