OPACS: The Early Years, and User Reactions

Following their first appearance in the UK in 1981 the use of OPACs (online public access catalogues) quickly spread, chiefly in academic but also in public libraries. Search facilities were initially fairly limited, being restricted to index keys of fixed length, mainly because of the expense of disk storage, and these OPACs were most suitable for known item searching. Keyword and Author searching followed, together with the use of Boolean operators, and Keyword quickly established itself as an alternative to structured subject headings. Some libraries adopted touch-screen terminals. User reactions are hard to find, though several libraries, including Hertfordshire County, conducted surveys; most users seem to have found OPACs to be an improvement.