Open source has been the center of attention in the library

PurposeThis paper aims to determine the current usage of next generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discovery tools in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.Design/methodology/approachUsing the same random sample of 260 colleges and universities in the USA and Canada from their original study, the authors revisited each institution's library web page to ascertain whether the OPAC interface(s) offered were the same or different than in their initial data collection. Data was collected and analyzed in October and November 2011.FindingsDiscovery tool use has practically doubled in the last two years, from 16 percent to 29 percent. A total of 96 percent of academic libraries using discovery tools still provide access to their legacy catalog. The percentage of institutions using ILS OPACs with faceted navigation has increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. Combining the use of discovery tools and faceted OPACs, at least 33 percent of academic libraries are now using a faceted interface. Discovery tools that aim to be the “single point of entry for all library resources” are the most recently popular.Research limitations/implicationsAbout 16 percent of the institutions (n=43) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. Thus, some data might be underreported.Practical implicationsThe findings identify trends that may inform academic libraries in the quest to providing next generation interfaces to their varied resources.Originality/valueThis study gives a timely update of next generation catalog (NGC) and discovery tool usage in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

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This is an electronic version of an article published in the print edition of the Journal of Library Administration, Volume 53(2) 147-166. It is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjla20#.UjthUFNlzK0 2 Abstract. Web-scale discovery services promise fast, easy searching from a single Google-like box, pleasing users and making library resources more discoverable. Some librarians embrace the concept of giving users what they have come to expect from Google, while others are concerned that this will "dumb down" searching and undermine information literacy. In this paper we explore the potential impact of web-scale discovery tools on information literacy, focusing particularly on undergraduate research skills. We review the existing literature and present findings and experiences from two mid-sized academic libraries that have adopted EBSCO Discovery Service as their library home page portal.

2010),"Evaluating and comparing discovery tools: how close are we towards next generation catalog?", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28 Iss 4 pp. 690-709 http:// dx.If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The study described in this paper aims to identify the progress made in the efforts to model current online public access catalogs (OPACs) after the next generation catalog (NGC) in academic libraries in the USA and Canada. Design/methodology/approach -A random sample of 260 colleges and universities was selected from Peterson's Guide to Four-Year Colleges 2009, an estimated 10 percent of the total population of 2,560 listed academic institutions. A checklist of 12 features of the NGC was used to evaluate the OPACs of the 260 libraries in the sample. The authors took as the OPAC that which the library linked to as its "catalog," even though some might be more properly considered "discovery tools" or "discovery layers." Some libraries used more than one OPAC interface simultaneously; in this case, each OPAC was analyzed separately. In the case of several institutions using the same consortial OPAC, only the first instance of the OPAC was analyzed. About 15 percent of the institutions (n ¼ 40) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. In all, a total of 233 unique instances of OPACs were analyzed. Data were collected from September 2009 through July 2010. The findings can be extrapolated to the population at the 95 percent confidence level with a confidence interval of^3. Findings -While bits and pieces of the next generation catalog are steadily working themselves into the current catalog, academic libraries still have a long way to go. About 16 percent of the OPACs in the sample did not show any advanced features of the NGC. More than half of the libraries (61 percent) had only one to five advanced features in their OPACs. Many of those with six or more NGC features were discovery tools. Only 3 percent of the OPACs in the sample (n ¼ 8) demonstrated seven to ten out of the 12 functionalities of the NGC, and they were instances either of WorldCat Local or Summon. The weak areas were federated searching, relevance based on circulation statistics, and recommendations...