Use of the Apple Macintosh to Access OCLC: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

With more than 16 million records accessed by more than 6,000 libraries, the OCLC Online Union Catalog [OLUC] is one of the world's largest bibliographic databases. [There are now over 17 million records in the OLUC and 8,000 member libraries.] Traditionally, this enormous bibliographic database has, for the most part, been accessed by those institutions using OCLC hardware—OCLC terminals including models 100, 105, and 110 and M300 and M300XT Workstations—and operating over dedicated phone lines. Although dial access to OCLC via nondedicated terminals has been available for over 10 years, the advent of personal computers with high‐speed modems and telecommunications software has made dial access more attractive economically for libraries with relatively low cataloging volumes. This article briefly describes, our use of the Apple Macintosh at the Merriam Center Library (MCL) to access the OCLC Online System.