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Location: Breakout 2: Future of the OPAC
Discussion: Future of the OPAC:Program Synopsis
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garciama |
Future of the OPAC:Program Synopsis
Jul 22 2008, 11:07 AM EDT
Presenter George Pearson takes a humorous but scholarly look at the "rise, fall, and possible rise again" of the OPAC. George points out that the OPAC is a product of the industrial age. The OPAC is primarily a finding tool for the library user, not a discovery tool like Google. Searching the catalog has always been an "unpleasant" solitary experience. In the mid 90s the nature of information changed (a paradigm shift) and users became the center of the universe. "The 1.0 catalog is now in a 2.0 World." George points out that today's users see no distinctions between catalogs, databases and websites. They want a simple search interface that provides "a one stop shopping experience" with social networking being a major component . George provides numerous examples of library OPACS today which are adapting to meet user demands. He then goes on to make several predictions about the OPAC's future. For one, he sees a move towards data consolidation. Old formats will become obsolete. Some libraries will not have local OPACs. Libraries will send out their metadata....etc. He ended the session by reminding librarians that they are not a format, but a service.--"Librarians have skills, knowledge...peculiarly fitted for the Information Age." Do you find this valuable? |
sbgarcia |
1. RE: Future of the OPAC:Program Synopsis
Jul 24 2008, 5:24 PM EDT
I found George to be an engaging speaker who communicated his ideas very clearly. In his analogy about the digital watch (the Swiss invented it and the Japanese got the credit because they new what to do with the technology) he drew the comparison on how we as librarians missed the boat on how our OPACs could of functioned (user friendly) and Google ultimately got credit, so to speak. He described our OPACs in terms of how we as librarians are steroetyped. One dimesional, unfriendly and boring. In another example, to illustrate how lacking our current OPACs system truly work he demonstrated Amazon with our search functions. Truly eye opening! In short, our opportunity to make our OPACs work well in the future lie with how our users search for information (i.e. federated searches). Do you find this valuable? |
