MARC records! that’s what it’s built on. MARC records are where the complete information for an item is stored.
By using the MARC standard to write records (or copying records written by others), we define the book’s title, author, blurb, subject—we even define whether it’s “in” or “out.” Software like Polaris, which is fluent in MARC, is able to then read those records and interpret it in more user-friendly formats.
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The numbers at the front of the MARC record line define what kind of field it is—title, author, keyword, etc.
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When we search for something, Polaris and by extension Aspen are pulling from this area. So it’ll know everything that’s in these fields—and nothing that isn’t.
If you type a search term into the bar on the top left corner of LEAP, you’ll almost always get a result—and this works most of the time, but there are more tools just beneath the surface.
Actually clicking FIND, and launching the Find Tool before you type in your search terms, can be a good first step. LEAP sometimes decides for you that it knows what you’re searching for—it will sometimes only show you its suggestions, not all possible results.
This happens a lot with patron accounts, and can make it easy for it to seem like certain patrons don’t exist, or certain books don’t exist. Assuming an account or an item doesn’t exist because this search bar doesn’t suggest it as a result is a bad idea.
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If you have entered a search term and you don’t like the suggestions given, you can also click the magnifying glass. That will open the Find Tool, but it will make itself a Patron, Bibliographic, or Item Record search, based on what it guesses you are trying to find.
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Let’s say a patron is looking for the book called Twilight, in the Warriors series. This is what that search looks like if you just search the keyword “twilight”:
