Online catalogues in North America: an overview

Abstract

OPACs currently in operation in North America fall into three categories: (1) turnkey systems (e.g. CLSI and Geac); (2) marketed, locally developed systems (e.g. NOTIS, VTLS); and (3) home‐grown systems (e.g. LCS at Ohio State University). Significant developments centre around linking systems, authority control, telecommunications, and the provision of information not usually found in traditional library catalogues. The paper includes an interesting differentiation of and discussion on linked systems versus integrated systems with good arguments for the former, plus examples. OPACs have become increasingly common in the past two years, although they are mostly still seen as replacing the card catalogue, but with greater search capabilities, and possible connections to circulation or status information. A few are becoming gateways to more specialised information about stock and status, and to more general information on other libraries' holdings. Even fewer, as yet, include information about non‐book material or have access to external databases. The true power of the online catalogue is seen as a lens for exploring a much larger bibliographic universe than any one library could ever hope to contain.

A comparison between the online catalog and the card catalog

“…There are a number of reasons for the resurgent interest in authority control in the online environment. The various difficulties that users have had with searching names and, as Potter (1986, p. 122) points out, the inconsistencies and errors in the records used to build the databases for online catalogs, have led to new attention being given to the concept of authority control. For example, the desire to be able to search personal names either in direct order or through initials has led to the enhancement of the scope and structure of authority files.…”

“…With regard to searching capabilities, the online catalog surpasses the traditional library catalog (Potter, 1986, p. 120). One of the most interesting features in the online catalog, and its major advantage over the card catalog, is in the ability of the user to search the needed item in a variety of ways not available in the manual catalog.…”

A comparison between the online catalogue and the card catalogue

“…There are a number of reasons for the resurgent interest in authority control in the online environment. The various difficulties that users have had with searching names and, as Potter[ 21, p. 122] points out, the inconsistencies and errors in the records used to build the databases for online catalogues, have led to new attention being given to the concept of authority control. For example, the desire to be able to search personal names either in direct order or through initials has led to the enhancement of the scope and structure of authority files.…”

“…With regard to searching capabilities, the online catalogue surpasses the traditional library catalogue[21, p. 120 ]. One of the most interesting features in the online catalogue, and its major advantage over the card catalogue, is in the ability of the user to search the needed item in a variety of ways not available in the manual catalogue.…”