Abstract
The behavior of academic library users has drastically changed in recent years. Internet search engines have become the preferred tool over the library online public access catalog (OPAC) for finding information. Libraries are losing ground to online search engines. In this paper, two aspects of OPAC use are studied: (1) the current OPAC interface and searching capabilities, and (2) the OPAC bibliographic display. The purpose of the study is to find answers to the following questions: Why is the current OPAC ineffective? What can libraries and librarians do to deliver an OPAC that is as good as search engines to better serve our users? Revitalizing the library OPAC is one of the pressing issues that has to be accomplished.
Highlights
The information-seeking behavior of today’s academic library users has drastically changed in recent years
The search results delivered by online search engines are sorted using relevance ranking systems that are more user-friendly than the ones currently employed by academic library online public access catalog (OPAC)
As for the location of the label in the OPAC record, we found that the location of the URL link depended on the OPAC in which it appeared: In some OPACs, links were located at the top of records; in others, they appeared in the middle or at the bottom
Summary
The information-seeking behavior of today’s academic library users has drastically changed in recent years. As Coyle and Hillmann pointed out: “Today’s library users have a different set of information skills from those of just a few decades ago They live in a highly interactive, networked world and routinely turn to Web search engines for their information needs.”[2] A recent study conducted by the University of Georgia on undergraduate research behavior in using the university’s electronic library concluded that Internet sites and online instruction modules are the primary sources for their research.[3] The students’ year of study did not make much of a difference in their choices. Researchers do not need to take information literacy classes to learn how to use an online search engine. It is only natural that library users turn to Internet search engines first for their information needs
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