Tech Forum

Since updating to gospel library 4.0, I've notice I cannot search for a phrase.
Putting a phrase in quotes such as "righteous and holy" brings back thousands of results, instead of one (D&C 107:29). Is there another way to do this?

I really enjoy most of the updates. I love the quick search for finding a scripture reference. When a teacher asks class members to look up a reference I get there much much quicker, but there are some use cases that the new search doesn't appear capable of.

Case 1:
I'm not very good at remembering scripture references, or what general conference talk some quote is from, but I can usually remember some or most of the words. Say I remember reading one of Elder Uchtdorf's talks on hope. I remember him saying something like, "The things we hope in lead to charity". or 'The things we hope for lead us to faith". If I didn't get the example quite right such as in that latter case, I would search for a shorter version, "Things we hope for". In the old program I would get precise results. Now, all of these searches would bring hundreds of results. The old search method was nice in elder's quorum, when I wanted to give an exact quote instead of a muddied up paraphrase.

Case 2:
I recognize a phrase is repeated in the scriptures such as "he that overcometh" which is repeated in Revelations 2. I want to see if any other scriptures contain this same phrase. Now I get hundreds of search results instead of just a few.

For the most part I get by by going on lds.org and using the advance search to get the results I want.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/search?l ... rcometh%22

Thanks again, I really do enjoy the new version.

Using Kindle Fire

I couldn't have said it better!

Thank you for this question. I feel the same way.

I believe that most people only remember a portion of a quote; not the whole quote, who said it, or the exact reference. The old system was much more helpful as a teacher and I have found better for sharing the Gospel. Often when I'm talking to non-members thoughts of scriptures and quotes will come to mind that I can share with them that will help them relate to the church. Using the "search by phrase" feature produced quick results of my thoughts and was very helpful when needed on the fly!

Lastly, it is also a bit tedious searching for unknown quotes and scriptures when studying because once you have selected a reference to read and it's not what you were looking for, you can't return to the previous page to continue your search. You must re-submit your search topic and wait for the whole library content to be scanned again.

How can we resolve these issues?

I emailed the gospel library team about this exact problem and haven't heard back. I absolutely loved this search feature of the old version. I honestly feel my ability to have a deep effective study has been hindered. I hope they address this issue soon!

I agree with the above. The current search feature isn't helpful at all. We need the option to search by exact phrase.

Gospel Library 4.1.0 for Android, released yesterday, allows searching for an exact phrase using quote marks, and returning to search results by pressing Back. There are several other improvements to search as well.