What does “relevance” mean in HOLLIS? How is that calculated?

HOLLIS, like most databases, defaults to sorting results by something called “relevance.” HOLLIS tends to favor results that meet some combination of these criteria: 

  • Recent publication date

  • High number of matches to your search terms in the HOLLIS record

  • Matches to your search terms in the author, title, and subject fields

  • For articles, peer-reviewed or highly-cited articles

HOLLIS guesses whether you’re trying to search for a specific citation (as opposed to a general topic), and adjusts results accordingly.

If you enter a person's name, HOLLIS will favor items written by that person over items about that person. Use the "subject" search filter in Advanced Search to search for items about the person. More about searching by subject in HOLLIS.

More details available in the vendor knowledge base.

Have another HOLLIS question? Our HOLLIS User Guide provides an overview of HOLLIS's features and functions.

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