Cataloguing Section
Invitation to Participate:
World-Wide Review of "Guidelines for OPAC Displays"
Cataloguing Section
2005-2007
Existing Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs) demonstrate differences in the range and complexity of their functional features, terminology, and help facilities. While many libraries already have OPACs, there is a need to bring together, in the form of guidelines or recommendations, a corpus of good practice to assist libraries in designing or re-designing the displays for their OPACs, taking into consideration the needs of users.
The Task Force on Guidelines for OPAC Displays was formed by the Division of Bibliographic Control in 1997 at the conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Cataloguing Section is the lead section, with members of the Task Force drawn from the Bibliography, Cataloguing, and Classification and Indexing Sections of the Division of Bibliographic Control, and from the Information Technology Section. Commentators from a number of other Sections and Round Tables were invited to participate.
In November of 1998, a draft of the guidelines was sent out for worldwide review, and much consideration was given to the comments received in finalizing the guidelines. Substantial revisions followed the 1998 worldwide review, necessitating a subsequent request for international comment in the Fall of 2003. With this current draft emanating from the IFLA 2003 meeting in Berlin, the Task Group has also ensured that the principles and recommendations articulated in this final set of guidelines both acknowledge and accommodate current developments in the design of OPAC systems and displays that are compliant with the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) (Saur 1998).
We invite your review of the proposed text for the "Guidelines for OPAC Displays" as revised to 2003.
Download the "Guidelines for OPAC Displays"
Please send comments to as indicated below, on or before February 13, 2004, upon which date the review period will be completed.
The Task Force will consider your comments and suggestions in further revisions to this document. A final version will be presented to the Standing Committees of the Bibliography, Cataloguing, Classification and Indexing, and Information Technology Sections, respectively, for a vote. The Task Force anticipates completing its charge entirely by the IFLA 2004 conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In addition to thanking you, in advance, for responding to this invitation to comment, I welcome this opportunity to express, on behalf of members of the Task Force, sincere gratitude to Dorothy McGarry (Task Force Chair, 1997-2001), and Martha Yee for contributing their expertise to informing the document in earlier stages of the process.
Please send responses to:
Prof. Lynne C. Howarth
Chair, Task Force on Guidelines for OPAC Displays of the IFLA Division of Bibliographic Control
Faculty of Information Studies
University of Toronto
140 St. George Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 3G6, CANADA
Tel. +(1)(416)9784666 (secure voicemail)
Fax. +(1)(416)9711399
E-mail: howarth@fis.utoronto.ca
