This report addresses the objectives of a national survey of users and non-users of online catalogs (OPAC's) as they apply to MELVYL and its implementation in the University of California (UC) Libraries on nine campuses. These objectives were to collect information to enable libraries to improve implementation of support services for public access…

A national study of users and non-users of public access online catalog systems (OPACs) was undertaken at 29 libraries, representing 15 computer systems, to provide data and interpretations useful to system designers and library administrators. The findings indicate that users have overwhelmingly positive responses to OPACs. Non-users have…

Over the last decade, studies of online catalogs have revealed that they frequently discourage users. Subject queries often fail to produce retrievals or produce retrieval sets that are too large and unwieldy to be easily scanned. Research shows that users are seeking alternative approaches to those that manipulate the subject headings in catalog…