[597] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Next Generation OPAC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Thu Jun 25 10:58:25 1992
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 09:46:06 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
2 Messages, 36 Lines
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From: "S. Thomson Moore" <STMOORE@PUCC>
Subject: opac-the next generation
Pardon me if this has already been mentioned, but as a musician I would be
delighted to see an opac with some sort of access to a snippet from the work
of music cataloged, whether in the form of a melodic incipit, or, why not,
the first page of the score (or to get even more utopian, the first five or
ten seconds of the piece as a sound file).
tom moore, STMOORE at PUCC, Music Listening
Library, Princeton University
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From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.sf.ca.us>
Subject: Re: Post-OPAC Era
Bernie Sloan makes the revolutionary but I think very sensible suggestion
that the OPAC may be on its way to becoming only a part of the information
solution. He mentions the use of the OPAC for distributing image databases.
I'd merely like to add that online fulltext also, rapidly, is becoming an
information resource which OPACs dispense.
I'd personally like very much to see the cataloging function of OPACs become
invisible: the bibliographic "invisible hand" guiding users to the
original information sources which they want. I imagine, though, that -- as
with classification approaches which preceded it -- the computerized
finders, even including those offered by gateway technologies like WAIS,
may be invisible for known-item searches, but will have to be very visible
for adequate subject-searching and for browsing. ("Gee, I'd kinda like to
find something about horses, but I'm not really sure what..." -- even on the
networks.)
Jack Kessler
kessler@well.sf.ca.us
