ONLINE PUBLIC ACCESS CATALOGUE
AN OVERVIEW
OPAC spells the magic `open sesame', as the golden master key to the treasure of knowledge. It makes a clean break with the inflexible traditional way of searching resources in the library. The user is at liberty to frame one's own search strategies. OPAC is so designed as to accommodate a wide spectrum of users' bibliographical approaches. Can software have a philosophy? Why not? Its conceptual model is reconciled to the user's mental model through an intuitive interface. OPAC's flexibility and presentation bewitch even the lukewarm users to rediscover the library again and again. Well, what's the secret of OPAC's amazing power? It's the MAP--MultiAccess Point--at its heart. OPAC is so responsive as to sensitize even the novice's novel queries, and so quick witted as to snap out the context-sensitive message from its photographic memory. Even the freshwater need not hesitate to jump onto the OPAC springboard from the Launch Pad. He'll never get lost so long as he keeps the map. Off-line guidance given here is meant for the OPAC users to dispense with two intermediaries--technical (computer) and managerial (library) personnel. `User friendly' is too inadequate a term to denote its array of exciting features. It discards the old practice to `remember' and `type' the search term. It offers the new technique to `see' and `point' the pop-up menus with pull-down choices. OPAC not only occupies the pride of place in any computerized modern library system, but also plays the crucial role as a `match-maker' of the user's requirements and the library's resources. That's all about the prelude to the OPAC story. OPAC could speak for itself, but it may sound Greek to the beginners.
Now let's take a close look at OPAC's constituent elements and its functional features. OPAC operates chiefly on three types of literature--monographs, articles and serials--accessible to the users in many libraries. As said earlier, its Instant Access Engine is triggered off as soon as the user chooses his search term via MAP. There's no illusion about its nature of functioning almost like a kaleidoscope. As you tilt the instrument, you will get a different view of the objects focussed upon. Here as you move from one access point to the other, you cannot but be impressed with a panoramic view of the logical array of documents in the respective intellectual chamber. Any literature survey would be incomplete without making a serious bibliographical search on them. As we know, "A true research begins with, and ends with a bibliography." Keeping in view the importance of thread-bare literature survey, on the one hand, and the `literary' and `bibliographic' descriptive elements of documents on the other, OPAC sets out its quest for documents matching with user's search options via MAP Spectrum.
This tutorial, and its related project, will cover the following material for Knowledge Seeker:
