OPAC

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Screenshot of the search mask of the OPAC of the Vienna University Library

An Online Public Access Catalog (publicly available online catalog, OPAC ) is an online , now mostly over the Internet accessible library catalog . It began to replace older types of library catalogs in the 1980s, and today almost every library has its own OPAC, which records its stock of publications and makes them searchable. OPACs with integrated library systems are processed .

Every OPAC has a database in which every existing publication in the respective library is stored as a digital catalog . The librarians can edit the OPAC in the so-called online service catalog ; Library users only have another version available, the online user catalog . This can be called up on the website of the respective library, where you will find a user interface that you can use to search for the components of the catalogs (author name, year of publication, keyword, etc.). The right search terms take you to the publication or group of publications you are looking for.

In libraries that have not yet incorporated all of their media into their OPAC, older catalog types are still in use for these holdings. In the course of the catalog enrichment , the OPAC catalogs are more and more often also full texts attached.

history

In the 1980s, OPACs began to replace the then common type of library catalogs, the card catalogs , and are now the most important and by far the most widespread type of catalog. Initially, access was via terminals in a local network , but with the spread of the Internet, more and more catalogs were available via it since the early 1990s. Initially, Internet access was often via a Telnet interface or special clients . Since the WWW was established in the mid-1990s, OPACs can typically be researched via their own freely accessible websites without having to visit the respective library. Meta search engines such as the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog enable simultaneous research in numerous OPACs, while bibliographic databases such as WorldCat offer an OPAC interface that accesses a common database of many libraries.

literature

  • Klaus Gantert, Rupert Hacker : Basic librarianship. 8th, completely revised and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11771-8 , pp. 202-213.
  • Dietmar Strauch , Margarete Rehm: Lexicon book, library, new media. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-11757-2 , p. 326.
  • Walther Umstätter , Roland Wagner-Döbler: Introduction to catalog customers: from card catalog to search engine . 3rd edition of the work by Karl Löffler / completely reworked by Walther Umstätter and Roland Wagner-Döbler. Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-777-20506-0 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Klaus Gantert, Rupert Hacker: Basic library knowledge. 8th, completely revised and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2008, p. 202.