[742] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
RE: Third Generation OPAC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL)
Tue Jul 14 14:56:22 1992
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1992 13:43:56 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The key phrase in the message I'm replying to was:
"If we serve different groups speaking several different languages at
all levels of expertise with needs that range from the very simple to
the very complex, that need to be met at any time from immediately to
over the next 6 months, we can build a temporary system to serve our
temporary needs."
Some of these needs are being met in integrated software, rather than
the "modular, build-it-as-you-need-it" way envisioned by the above
message. European systems, for instance, have pretty well solved the
"several different languages" problem. The multilingual system I'm
familiar with is ALEPH, which handles any language in the Latin/Hebrew/
Arabic/Cyrillic alphabets and is used by the Israeli university
libraries + has gained a reasonable foothold in Europe; there are
others, of course. By "handles" I mean the screens and error messages
are in the language you choose, and of course the commands the user
inputs.
As for "all levels of expertise", ALEPH does a
fair job here too; it depends very much on how each library builds
its user interface. I found the interface at CERN very complicated,
whereas I found the one at the Danish library, COSMOS, much more
user-friendly; both are running ALEPH version 3, whose OPAC is
CCL-based (Israeli libraries are still running version 2.4, which
is completely different, at least the search module which is not
yet fully CCL). The capabilities are actually pretty complex:
straight search on any field, or Boolean search (including adjacency
operator), view output in any one of, say, 20 formats (define your
own, up to 99), search on different subsets of the library catalog
(which is logically divided into different "databases" to enable
this), general help, context-sensitive help; printing of sets saved;
ordering of items currently on-loan (and I know this version is
supposed to let you also order photocopies charged to a research
budget if you have one, but I didn't find out whether COSMOS
implemented it yet), etc. It's different
enough from the version I have that I felt like a helpless new
user on first entry, but COSMOS passed the 10-minute test...
All this is online, of course; I haven't yet met an online system,
it's true, that will answer you at some point within the next 6
months... :-)
What I'm trying to say, I think -!- is that U.S. libraries do tend
not to know about what's going on "across the water", even today
in our electronic age; and Europe seems to me to be more advanced
in OPAC interfaces than most U.S. systems, partly because what's
a "minority population" in the U.S. is a "national population" in
Europe and they were aware from the start that their user needs
are complicated and not monolithic.
-----------------------------------------------------
| Judy Koren, |
| Head, Technical Services, Elyachar Central Library, |
| The Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology, |
| Haifa, Israel 32000. |
| |
| Email: judyk@lib.technion.ac.il |
| or: lbjudy@vmsa.technion.ac.il |
-----------------------------------------------------
