An Analytical Study of Online Public Access Catalogues in Comparison with Features of Amazon and Google: A Checklist Approach

Recent researches in the field of cataloguingconfirmed that the library catalogue is losing its importance and its service cannot match the level of Google, Google Scholar, Google Books and Amazon. Ultimately it made the library users to bypass the library catalogue for their information requisites. The scenario asserts the need of major shifts in cataloguing in various aspects and compels to examine the current status of library catalogues. Online Public Access Catalogues (OPAC) of twenty eight libraries are taken for this investigation. A checklist has been prepared for the same. Features of Amazon and Google including Google Scholar and Google Books were contemplated for this evaluative study, as the research studies revealed that all these have made great impact on library cataloguing. This investigation finds the weaker sections such as accessibility, content enrichment, and information sharing capability in OPACs; and suggests that it should be integrated into OPAC. In addition, the ongoing developments in OPACs have been discussed in this paper. The researchers aim to identify the problematic areas in OPACs which will certainly be the base for developing the prototype.