Changing conditions -changing needs. Experiences with and trends of OPAC development activities at the National Széchényi Library, Hungary

Abstract

The OPAC concept has extended towards virtual integrated catalogues. It provides local and remote databases on common and uniform surface. Inter-faces have been developed to information portals by forming intelligent navigation tools, and by expanding preselection opportunities. It became nec-essary to satisfy various needs: e.g., to display different information in relevant modes for users searching either documents or bibliographic data. Modern OPACs should be prepared for supplying any document type, including manuscripts, tiny prints, microfilms, motion pictures etc. The „record map" idea is alsó shown, and the technical possi-biiities using the ZEBRA program are presented for the implementation of a virtual catalogue constructed from mixed (database, html and xml pages) sources.