Online Public Access Catalogs: Interfaces and Ease of Use

The new title of this journal does not include mutually exclusive terms, in any sense of the combination. As the only public librarian of this new lot, it falls upon me to point out there is a vast world full of libraries beyond the manicured lawns. Amongst ourselves we often point to our differences when to that outside world our similarities are more obvious and profound. And so “public access,” my loosely defined beat on these new pages, might more properly be termed “access by our constituents,” an ever‐changing group that travels between our two worlds at various times, and even concurrently, with little attention to our own narrow discriminations of style or purpose.