"Catalog" was Naming of...appliances

[Walt Crawford]

I can't resist...

1. Was "OPAC" ever supposed to mean anything outside the profession? I hope not.
Whenever I used it, I assumed that I was speaking/writing to a group of library
folk. For them, it was (in the 1970s and 1980s) a useful abbreviation to
distinguish online catalogs from card catalogs. For anyone else, it's a catalog.

2. Funny thing about this, but my sense is that public libraries mostly don't
come up with cute names (or any names) for their online catalogs, while (some)
academic libraries seem to think that an online catalog has to have a name. I'm
sure there are exceptions, but that's what I've generally seen.

Not that I would ever wish to suggest that academic librarians might be able to
learn anything from public librarians.[insert sardonic emoticon of choice
here]..but here, as in most other cases involving actual service orientation, I
think the public librarians are and always have been right. Your online catalog
is a catalog. Giving it a name may make for an amusing contest but certainly
doesn't increase communication to any user.

Sure, we named Eureka. But then, that's an external service (for any library)
with a fee attached. Calling it "Stuff you get through RLG" really wouldn't fit
well on the banner...