IS THERE A NEED FOR A GENERIC OPAC?

Terabyte Interactive is a software house specialising in interactive
multimedia applications.  We have published a variety CD-ROMs including The
Official America's Cup '95, Kiwi Kids abc, New Zealand's Journey Through
Time and World of Whales.  Previews of these CD-ROMs are available at
http://www.terabyte.co.nz

We are interested in exploring the possibility of developing an OPAC
(On-Line Public access Catalogue) for museums.

We have been told that no generic product exists - although there are many
examples of specifically tailored software, and some vendors of collections
management systems offer this as part of their software.

We believe that most museums aspire to have an OPAC, yet, to date, few have
such a facility.

It would therefore seem that there may be a large number of museums who need
an OPAC who cannot afford to commission a tailored system.

We would therefore be grateful for any and all opinions as to whether there
would be a market for a generic OPAC product along the lines of the
conceptual specification which follows.

It would also be of interest to know which museums have their collections
database (or a significant subset) available On-Line on the Internet.

We would also appreciate suggestions as to what price museums would be
prepared to pay for software of this type.



TARGET AUDIENCE


1:      General Public via on-site kiosk:

eg: Visitors seeking further information about the Thai lintel on exhibition
or wanting to view other relevant artefacts -or- a museum visitor wanting to
know where the display on aboriginal boomerangs is being shown within a
large museum


2:      General Public via Internet remote access:

eg: A net surfing art-lover wanting to know where the best Picasso works are
currently on display - or - a New York high-school student writing a report
about the extinct Moa.


3:      Computerphobes:

eg: A museum employee having difficulty progressing beyond the
user-interface of their collection management system, looking for a
user-friendly front-end in order to access collections information more
effectively.


4:      Museums:

Most importantly, it is the museums themselves who are best served by the
OPAC system, with it's potential for serving their outreach needs. Each
"hit" and the details of usage can be logged by the OPAC, providing accurate
data as to off-site visitation enabling museums to substantially increase
attendance.



KEY FEATURES

The brief for OPAC outlines the following features:


1: PC and LAN platform
2: Attractive GUI
3: Touch screen + mouse and keyboard where required
4: Hypertext capable
5: Multimedia integrated
6: Capacity for handling 100,000 object records
7: Fast, user-friendly boolean retrieval (text indexed on several fields)
8: Printing capability
9: User-billing capability and statistics of usage
10: Internet accessible
11: Low deployment cost

a: data selectively exported from collections database in a flat file format
with relations resolved to text.

b: Hypertext linkages eg: to an artist/maker would be created as part of
this process.

c: Linkages to multimedia references for each object.

d: Certain data fields created for index retrieval only, not for display.

e: Exported data then loaded into the OPAC and indexed.

f: Export/import process periodically reiterated to refresh the database.

g: Multimedia data would be shared between the collection management system
and the OPAC systems.

h: User-configurable re: control over the content's format as part of export
configuration (export process would generate standard text for each object,
relevant to it's nature eg: natural history specimens describe differently
from artwork).

i: configurable retrieval paths  re: what is used and how configured.
Typical fields may include up to a dozen retrieval points such as:
Name/title:
Department/Object type:
Artist/Maker:
Materials/Media:
Date made:
Place made:
Classification:
General:

j: facilities for updatable general information about the museum, exhibition
programme, memberships, etc.




Any thoughts on this subject or other ideas / contacts would be greatly
appreciated.

Please head your Subject with GENERIC OPAC or similar or write to me personally.


Thank you in advance.



Karleen Kopa
Learning
TERABYTE INTERACTIVE
NEW ZEALAND

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