On the search for a great OPAC

What is an OPAC?

Accessit "set & forget" carousel

OPAC stands for Online Public Access Catalog -- in other words, it's a tool for searching a library's collection of physical books, digital books, and links to databases, websites, and other resources.

Why is it important?

The OPAC is the public face of the library. Families, teachers, students, administrators, and communities can evaluate a library's collection and the librarian's curation of outside resources. The OPAC is meant to be the first and best place for conducting student research, and is - in a way - a virtual librarian that is always available. It is also the platform for cataloging, circulating and inventorying the library collection.

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What do you ask of an OPAC platform before committing to it?

• What are it's strengths? Weaknesses?
• How intuitive is the system for students? How about for teachers?
• What features make the librarian's job easier?
• What features allow students to easily interact with the collection?
• What reporting tools are built into the platform?
• How customizable is the platform?
• How easy is it to migrate records from the existing OPAC to the new one?
• What is the cost?

Accessit example Fairy Tales dashboard

In choosing an OPAC, you are trying to ascertain the usability of it for all of the school's stakeholders. An ideal OPAC would be visually engaging, allow for book discovery, enable collaboration with teachers and administrators, and facilitate the many aspects of librarianship. Circulation, certainly, along with cataloging and the curation of websites, databases and online apps that support and ease the academic load for students. Can one OPAC do all this intuitively with a minimum of friction, so that students don't become frustrated or feel disengaged from the process?

Accessit example Roald Dahl ideas

After years of trying to 'sell' students on the usability of Destiny, I'm convinced that Accessit is a better product - one that smooths out the (static, tons of clicks, techy) user interface and boosts the intuitiveness. Accessit is dynamic where Destiny is static. Accessit is student centered where Destiny is librarian centered. Accessit is customizable where Destiny is limited. Accessit is drag-and-drop where Destiny is click-click-click-click-click. Accessit is fun where Destiny is, frankly, a slog.

I'm eager to read what other OPACs are recommended by colleagues in my program!

Cataloging and OPAC

I'm deep into the book Catalog It! by Allison G. Kaplan, a book about the art and practice of cataloging library materials. Fun, right?! The thing is, it *is* actually really interesting, once you get over the unbelievable number of acronyms (really, I felt like it was a test of my ability to cram more library acronyms into my brain).

What I really appreciate about this book is the unveiling of a host of codes and symbols used in cataloging that heretofore had been a mystery to me. Despite eight years of running a school library, there was so much I didn't know about the history of cataloging, the role of the Library of Congress (LOC, for those in the know), and - especially - the MARC records (MAchine Readable Cataloging). 

And knowledge is power! I feel so much more confident now in digging into and modifying a book's MARC record - something I had been explicitly told I should NEVER do by well-meaning and authoritative librarians in my former school district. Their definitiveness left me with the impression that I would be screwing up records all around the world if I modified - incorrectly - a MARC record. It left me with a sense of fear and also a question: if changing a MARC record is so incredibly consequential, why is it so easy to do? 

Who knew this was how to change the record type?*

In fact, we should be modifying the MARC record for every book that we bring into the library - to tie it to school curricula and make connections to other books in the catalog. Reading this book with my OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog - in my case, Follett Destiny) open, I found all kinds of lovely pieces of information in the MARC record that I hadn't known were there. It is really gratifying to have a handbook that explains what each line in a MARC record means and how / when to modify it. Additionally, Kaplan directs readers to the LOC's guide to the MARC fields as a quick reference tool whenever a cataloging question arises. I bookmarked it right away.

Recently, my supervisor asked me to catalog the posters that came with some workbooks ordered by the SpED department and my mind circled around the idea and came up blank. Now I see that this can be done, easily. It makes me feel like this:

Bing Image Creator. Prompt: "digital art rendering of a school
librarian excited about new knowledge." 5 Apr 2025.

Over and over again while reading this book, I found myself thinking: what is my goal when cataloging? The answer was always: to make it easier for students (and staff!) to access information. Indeed, Kaplan writes: "...the essence of cataloging is organization for the purpose of retrieval." (p. 50) Kaplan's guidelines have helped me to feel emboldened to modify spine labels, MARC records, nonfiction organization, and more in the library with that goal in mind. And, there is reassurance in knowing that - should I get it wrong the first time - I can always go back and fix it until it's right. 

* Obviously, lots of trained librarians! But, it was new to me.

Kaplan, Allison G. (2016). Catalog it!: a guide to cataloging school library materials (3rd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.