BOPAC2: a new dimension in OPAC display
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040711 |
| Pages | 50-55 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Author | F.H. Ayres,M.J. Ridley |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
B0PAC2: a new
dimension in OPAC
display
by F.H.Ayres & M.J.Ridley, Department
of Computing, University of Bradford
This article does not fully cover the background
and philosophy behind BOPAC2. This is done by a
number of published articles and reports. The
present BOPAC2 which is available on the Internet
and is being accessed from all over the world is the
result of two Research Projects which were funded
by the British Library. The first Project attempted
to simulate the new type of OPAC which we
believed could be the forerunner of
a
much more
efficient and effective library catalogue than any of
those presently in use. Our aim was to utilise some
of the facilities that were becoming widely avail-
able on the computer desktop. Features of most
GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) such as scrolling
displays, highlighting text and pull down menus
clearly offered improvements to many information
systems of which OPACs are only one.
Building on the findings of the first Project, the
second Project set up an operational OPAC on the
Internet. A major change since the first Project
has been the growth of the Internet in general and
the World Wide Web in particular. These develop-
ments meant that the potential advantages we had
seen with BOPAC1 could be delivered to any
desktop (not just the Windows based PC used in
BOPAC1). However many emerging Web based
interfaces to OPACs (and other information
systems) did not seem to be making the most of the
Web's possibilities. The result was BOPAC2. It
has three distinct elements
• A WWW - Z39.50 gateway which provides
access to catalogues and bibliographic
databases through the Z39.50 protocol. The
Gateway used was Europagate which was
set up as the result of a European Research
Project and is in the public domain.
• The Z39.50 server libraries and
bibliographic databases. BOPAC2 now
covers a wide range of targets.
• The Java applet. This is the program which
gives BOPAC2 its power and versatility
once a retrieval has been downloaded.
Technical developments
There are a number of technical developments
taking place which should be influencing all
aspects of cataloguing from standards like AACR2
and the MARC Format to the final OPAC display.
The first is the Internet and the large numbers of
library catalogues that are accessible there.
The second is the Z39.50 protocol and its ability to
provide access to these catalogues through the
Internet and in addition to link catalogues by
forming them into groups or clumps as they are
called in the UK
Finally, the most important of all these develop-
ments is the advent of Java. This is vital because it
has enabled OPACs like BOPAC2 to be designed
with searching and display facilities not available
to commercial OPACs in use today. It allows large
retrievals to be downloaded with broad-based
search criteria. The retrieval can then be analysed
and organised very quickly using these new
facilities in ways that were not possible with
traditional OPACs. The records, once downloaded
and held in the computer's memory, can be sorted
or selected by many criteria while movement
between them is very fast. Only a small set of the
possible options has been implemented so far in
BOPAC. Any part of the MARC record may be
used as the basis for sorting or selecting and we
are not limited by indexing that was done when
the records were added to their 'home' catalogue.
We can also use Java to analyse the variations
across the set of records and exploit this to high-
light what are the significant differences between
records. It is possible, for example, to look for
differences in language or format and where these
are significant use them as selection criteria. The
limitations here are those imposed by the quality
and consistency of the MARC records that make
up the retrieval.
Obtaining the retrieval over the
Web
In order to obtain a retrieval a selection is made
from the list of
servers.
This selection can be from
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