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December, 2000
FACING UP TO WEB-BASED OPAC INTERFACES - JANUS LIVES! Dr G E Gorman Janus, for those denied the benefits of a classical education in this all-too-vocational age, was the Roman god of doorways and arches - an appropriate patron of Web masters, don�t you think? The Web is our electronic doorway to information, and after many frustrating hours spent with Web-based OPACs it is clear to me that those who develop and manage these portals need all the help they can get, whether Roman, Greek, Norse or Celtic. Janus, with his two faces - one looking to the past, one to the future - is my choice; if Web-based OPACs are to be effective doorways to information, then they need to be cognisant of how OPACS have evolved and how they meet user requirements (the face to the past) in order to devise new interfaces that move us into the next generation of library-based information portals (the face to the future). If we look at a range of Web-based OPACs, we find that many and varied claims are made by their developers, and that these do not always match the realities of searching these OPACs. Most of the disparities come in the user interface in our view, with far too many Web OPACs employing traditional menu or command structures, and very little attention paid to actual user requirements. A Web OPAC, more than a traditional OPAC, is likely to be accessed by an extremely eclectic and diverse user group, which means that the interface must be extremely user-friendly, simple and clear. To some extent searching Web OPACs is becoming easier with current improvements to user interface software such as GUI and hypertext links, but there is still a long way to go. Developers in our view need to remember that interfaces should provide access in ways that are complete, efficient and totally acceptable to the users. Accessibility is the key here, as Flower et al. (1991) indicated some years ago; the interface must be accessible at all levels of the user�s skills, and it should encourage the user to improve his knowledge of how to manipulate the interface most effectively. For this to happen as painlessly as possible any Web-based OPAC interface worthy of our consideration must do two things:
As for links, who these days want to use a Web OPAC that does not facilitate surfing across the Web? The new generation of Web-based OPAC must not only link to the internal circulation system and ILL service but also must provide links to the full array of electronic resources within the particular library system. More than that, it is increasingly useful to have access to Z39.50 protocols through the OPAC, and especially links to external resources. As indicated earlier, all of this must be as seamless as possible, for fewer and fewer users are interested in the location of information as long as they can access it quickly. Does your Web-based OPAC provide these services? If not, it is probably not serving your users as well as it might, and the Web masters in your library need to become more Janus-like as they continue to improve the system. They may find it useful to consult some of the MCB journal articles listed below, as well as most issues of Online Information Review - these are as close as one gets to a Janus primer for Web-based OPAC development. References and further reading Flower, C.J.H., Murphy, F.J., and White, P. (1991) Matching OPAC User Interfaces to User Needs: The Product Requirements Document. British Library R & D Reports, 6041. Huddersfield: Huddersfield Polytechnic. Greene, D.J. (1996) �INNOPAC Millennium: Preparing Libraries for the 21st Century: A Perspective and Commitment�. Library Hi Tech 14, 4: 45-56. Harmsen, B. (2000) �Adding Value to Web-OPACs�. The Electronic Library 18, 2: 109-113. Lombardo, S.V. and Condic, K.S. (2000) �Empowering Users with a New Online Catalogue�. Library Hi Tech 18, 2: 130-141.
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