Developing a World‐Wide Web OPAC Available to Purchase

The development of networked access to academic library catalogue records has been conspicuously slow compared with that of campus‐wide information systems in general. In cooperation with its systems suppliers BLCMP, the Pilkington Library in Loughborough is seeking to remedy this situation by developing an interface that allows users to access its OPAC via the Web. The benefits of such a facility are reflected in BLCMP's decision to incorporate a revised version in the forthcoming release of the commercial Talis system; but problems relating to the ‘statelessness’ of HTTP and to the inadequacy of traditional catalogue records as access points for electronic information resources are still cause for consideration.