OASIS: A front‐end for prototyping catalog enhancements

There has been a massive investment in the installation of online catalogs: in selection, in the supporting infrastructure of terminals and networks, in catalog record conversion, in training, and, lately, in linking online catalogs with other online systems. In contrast, the state‐of‐the‐art of the functionality of online library catalogs has advanced little in the past few years. Rather it has been a matter of existing systems being upgraded towards the functionality of the better systems and of refinements being added. It is time for a further advance in online catalog design. We believe that the next generation of online catalogs should and will have features such as those discussed and illustrated in this article.