Affiliations: Assistant Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi, Delhi – 110007 (India). Email: mmadhu@libinfosci.du.ac.in | Senior Research Fellow, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi, Delhi – 110007. Email: shalini1740@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper provides a comparative analysis of the functionality of three different Online Public Access Catalogues, i.e., LibSys, VTLS's iPortal, and Troodon ILMS acquired by study university libraries in Delhi with the help of a specially designed evaluation checklist. The various features of the OPACs in seven university libraries (University of Delhi, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi Technological University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Indira Gandhi National Open University, and Jamia Hamdard University) are evaluated. The evaluation approach taken was similar to that of Margam and Aggarwal with minor modifications. It comprises 214 dichotomous questions with 145 features in 12 broad categories. The study explored different features of OPACs, of which page layout is the highest scored feature and Web 2.0 based OPAC feature is the lowest. Location map and series hyperlinks, meta-search, comprehensive search limits in publisher and place of publication, spell check software facility and additional help to remote users, image of book covers, relevancy ranking, reviews, user-added tags, tagging, RSS feed from the search, citation creator, customer written reviews “email this link”, etc., are some of the features lacking in all the surveyed OPACs. The highest scored OPAC is the LibSys-based OPAC of Jamia Hamdard University with 61.68 per cent and LibSys of Jamia Milia Islamia is the lowest scored with 41.58 per cent. The findings of the study prove to be a useful source of information to librarians, especially university librarians who are planning to introduce OPACs and also for the software vendors who wish to improve the functionality of their OPACs.
