Web-based OPACs: Between Tradition and Innovation.
Year: 1999
Type: article
Abstract: Developments in information technology have propelled the implementation of OPACs available via the Internet. The article analyzes the change that these OPACs have represented to the structure, administration, and maintenance of the catalogs; the retrieval systems; and the user interfaces. The persistence of traditional practices in the structure and organization of information prevents OPACs from becoming truly innovative tools. The structure of databases is examined, as are the traditional principles that have governed systems development. Also discussed are the repercussions of the application of rules and formats that were developed for manual systems and that are no longer appropriate within the new technological environment surrounding us. The implementation of automated online public access catalogs (OPACs) has clearly been influenced by developments in information technology, much in keeping with the OPACs' status as information resources. In principle, any innovative environment is expected to produce innovative products, in form as well as in function. Nevertheless, Web-based OPACs, in spite of having been developed in a technological environment, cannot really be considered innovative since their fundamental structure as well as their maintenance and administration faithfully reflect the basic principles of library tradition. In fact, a similar trend took place with first-generation automated systems, which used innovative (at that time) technology, but persisted in maintaining the traditional concepts of the library catalog. First-generation OPACs adapted a new technology, but did not improve upon traditional manual catalogs, of which they were a true reflection. It was only through pressure from the information industry that these first catalogs were displaced and converted into second generation OPACs, incorporating information retrieval systems similar to those of commercial database distributors.(1) The Internet development has now propelled the implementation of catalogs into this new medium. It can be said that Web-based catalogs represent an advance over the equivalent catalogs available in local networks or via telnet access. Web-based catalogs, like all library catalogs, basically fulfill two functions: locating works based on known details and identifying which documents in the database cover a given subject. However, users of these tools must overcome problems of both a mechanical and conceptual nature.(2) This is especially true in the case of subject-based information access, the most highly used type of topic searching and, at the same time, the most problematic.(3) As Larson described, the OPAC user becomes like Ulysses when, on his return to Ithaca, he must cross the Strait of Messina.(4) In order to do so, Ulysses must avoid running aground on the rocks guarding the goddess, Escila. At the same time he has to avoid being trapped in the whirlpool caused by the goddess Caribdis, as she drank the waters of the lagoon. Crashing into the rocks is analogous to misdirected subject searching, whereas the whirlpool stands as a metaphor for information overload. Up until the present, research into improving OPACs has centered, principally, on the problems that result from the inadequacy of end-user interfaces, as well as from retrieval systems based on searching procedures such as single- and multiple-term matching and traditional browsing. Part of this body of research leans toward the development of interfaces that enhance and facilitate the dialogue between user and system, an area in which normalization and homogenization play a determining role. Other research has come to favor the development of new mechanisms for information access and retrieval, capable of overcoming the limitations of classic Boolean logic or exact matches, for example. Nevertheless, there have not been many efforts, until a few years ago, aimed at designing databases with a record structure different from the MARC format whose own structure reflects an organization of data based on existing cataloging rules. …
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1549468089