Conference is discussing a number of important and interesting developments in the management of information and the place of the library catalogue in what is in effect the second information revolution. The first revolution took place half a millennium ago with the invention of printing. The difference between the two is that the latest revolution is developing so fast that we cannot argue for too long about the place and function of the catalogue. If we do it will be too late for the profession's expertise to play a part.
There seems to be a tendency for many librarians to dismiss the Internet as a disorganised muddle and the search engine as ineffective. This is a pity because the search engine, is very fast, its relevance techniques in a surprising number of cases bring the required information to the top of the pile and it covers a large area. For example Google is now indexing one and a quarter billion web pages. It is not surprising that library users are turning to the Internet for their information needs.
However, the library catalogue has two important major advantages. The first is authority control which offers a structured approach to organising retrievals. The second is the display of its search results, something that the search engine cannot match. However, before we claim too much we should ensure that what we claim is in fact working effectively. In the case of authority control, unfortunately, the fact is that in many cases it simply does not work at all. On the other hand library OPAC display does work and has a number of display options available. However, movement between one display and another is slow and cumbersome. This is probably why many of our users are turning to the search engines. Can we do something to improve them? The answer is yes, but it will need crash programs and a new approach. I am bringing these views to the notice of Conference not to be provocative but because I believe that something can be done and that it could be done quickly In two separate documents which I have circulated privately I have provided evidence that what I am saying is correct. The first was Comments on Guidelines to OPAC display which I submitted to the IFLA Task Force on OPAC Display. The second was a document which I have called Authority control: Does it work? In both case I have used examples to demonstrate that the points that I am making are valid and can be proved.
I am fortunate in having worked on and helped to develop with my colleagues Mick Ridley and Lars Neilson a new type of tool which makes it possible to test whether authority control is working. At the same time I am able to demonstrate that there are better ways of display than those at present being used in library OPACs. This tool is BOPAC2 and it is not my purpose to use this Forum to advertise the advantages of BOPAC2 but I need to briefly describe the tool that I am using. BOPAC2 is not in itself an OPAC but it adds value to existing OPACs. It is able to download quite large retrievals. For example up to five hundred can be easily downloaded within a reasonable time. Once downloaded the retrieval can be displayed and examined in a number of ways as I demonstrate in the Case Studies that I give. Movement from one display to another is very fast.
The claims that I have made above have not been made lightly and can be substantiated by following the link to the Department of Computing of the University of Bradford. [http://www.bopac2.comp.brad.ac.uk/~bopac2/htdocs/auth_cntrl/] Initially we will place the two documents referred to above with the case studies together with the comments that we have received together with my replies and further case studies.
Fred Ayres 6/11/00