(Online Public Access Catalog)

An Online Public Access Catalog (often abbreviated as OPAC or simply Library Catalog) is an online database of materials held by a library.

Most OPACs are accessible over the Internet to users all over the world.

Users search a library catalog principally to locate books and other material physically located at a library.

Although a handful of experimental

systems existed as early as the 1960s, the

first large-scale online catalogs were

developed at Ohio State University in 1975

and the Dallas Public Library in 1978.

Cavite State University had its Online

Public Access Catalog in 2011.

QUICK SEARCH

1. From the Welcome screen or any Athena menu, click the Search quick start button.

2. Click the Quick Search tab. You will see the Quick Search screen

3. Type the word or phrase that you want to use a search term.

4. Click Search.

Advance Search

1. From the Welcome screen or any Athena menu, click the Search quick start button.

2. Click the Advance Search tab.

3. Enter your search terms. To limit a search term to a particular type of information, open the list to the far right of the search term and choose a limit category.

4. If you are using more than one search term, indicate the relationship between the terms by choosing AND, OR, or NOT from the list between the search terms.

5. Click Search

EASE OF USE

Technology makes OPACs very user-friendly.

OPACs offer sophisticated methods of searching

for materials.

Users can combine terms such as “Shields” in the

author field and “diaries” in the title field.

Clients can search the catalogue from the comfort

of their own home.

FLEXIBILITY

OPACs are easily updated. As soon as items are entered, they can be indexed to become accessible. Records are also easily removed from the database.

SIZE

Terminals can take up much less space than bulky card catalogues.

EASE OF USE

Not all OPAC user interfaces are created equal. Others

may not be user-friendly.

Several terminals would be necessary to avoid line ups.

Some form of backup is needed if the system goes

down, or the library catalogue will be unavailable.

Complicated search strategy options can lead to too

many or too few results. This can easily waste users’

time.

COSTS  Depending on the size of the library, the type of computer hardware, software and networking cable required plus the retrospective conversion of existing bibliographic records in the library’s manual catalogue, the cost can be extremely high. 

DESIGN If the system is poorly designed, it may

require undue switching back and forth between screens to see detailed records. This can be tedious and frustrating for the user.

Question #1: Do you know what is an OPAC?

Most of the students are not aware that they are using the OPAC. They don’t know that the computers in the library that they are using to locate books are called OPAC.

Question #2: Why are you using OPAC ?Most of the students answered, OPAC is faster and easier to use. You don’t need to exert so much effort in locating the book you need.

Question #3: If you will to choose between OPAC and CARD CATALOG, what will you

choose ? All the students answered OPAC.

Question #4: Rate OPAC from 1-10 (10 is the highest) and why ?

Majority of the students gave a score of 8. For them, the system still need improvements.