[701] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
RE: Third Generation OPAC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (KINGH%SNYSYRV1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice)
Thu Jul 9 09:42:43 1992
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1992 08:23:48 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: KINGH%SNYSYRV1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Perhaps we're not asking the right questions. In my classification courses,
one of the principles drummed into my brain was that the classification
designed or chosen should fill a defined purpose(s). Building a color-coded
system for people who are all color-blind is not likely to work. So, we
need to ask what is the purpose of the OPAC? Are we really designing an
online catalog to the library's resources with a gateway to library's
in the region or are we designing an information retrieval system designed
to access materials in any format in any location from library or commercial
provider? What kind of resources will we need to provide bibliographic,
full-text, or remote or local access to? Will this information retrieval
system include an opac as a separate but easily accessible component? And,
if this system is meant to access other providers, should we all be designing
a universal system (like OCLC) or continue to work with individual vendors
competing with one another for a market place? Maybe we should begin to
think of the minority, and encourage vendors to develop niches not for entire
systems but modular components that can be bought off the shelf and
added to a basic system or removed from a basic system so that if we serve
many different groups at all levels of expertise speaking a number of
different languages with needs that range from the very simple to the very
complex that must be responded to in times ranging from immediately to
over the next 6 months, we build a system that temporarily meets our
temporary needs.
Sorry for the long message. I guess I like dreaming as well as the
next person 8).
Hannah King
SUNY HSC Library at Syracuse
kingh@snysyrv1
kingh@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu
