[WEB4LIB] Re: Naming of Library [computer] appliances (OPAC or not)

[David Johnson]

Roy T is right on!

I am a library systems technology guy here,  who came to this field out of
the education discipline, and the social services.  There we tried to make
things simple to understand, accessible,  but we, too, I must admit,
invented our own set of  terms in "educationese' to describe kids and
families with learning and adjustment difficulties. (Witness "ADHD".)

I must admit that it took me a little time at work here at MIT Libraries to
finally discover that "OPAC" was the term for the computerized telnet
accessible card catalog, a term used widely in most or at least many many
libraries.  I thought it was just MIT's way of trying to be cute (they call
their campus buildings by number - not names - although they are all named,
nobody remembers the names, only the numbers -true!). No,  I find almost all
libraries are into "OPAC"s.  Hmmm.

I admit to a great sense of frustration when you throw more gibberish at
patrons and expect them to love to come to the library, either in person or
over the WEB.

A librarian talking about the "telnet-based OPAC" and the "web-based OPAC"
is a sure way to keep retired alumni out of the contribution list of
benefactors to the college libraries.   If you have a cutesy term,   (here
it is BARTON, after the founder of MIT), maybe you can throw it around for
the linguistics and history of science grad students who love stuff like
that.  But if you are serious about INCREASING accessibility for your patron
base,  dump the fad lingo, and go back to basics. A card catalog (without
cards) in a computer is a computerized catalog, an on-line catalog, a
web-paged catalog, but a catalog just the same.   

Cataloging websites and  "metadata" is another term I haven't quite got a
handle on yet.  What is "metadata" that it needs to have its own term?
Can't we just say we are cataloging websites containing data?  True, this
probably originated somewhere in the web language programmer's mind, not the
librarians,  although I'm not sure. 

But this is:

An "OPAC" is an acromym, not a word anywhere else but in a library among
library staff.  Dump the word and call it a catalog. 

David  Johnson  
Library Technology Consultant        	617-253-9327
MIT Libraries 			Room 14-0615
				77 Mass Ave  Cambridge, MA   02139