Information services provided through the OPAC: with special reference to the government university libraries of Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs) are one of the main interfaces that link the library with its users. It opens more intimate gateway for online users. There is a variability of OPAC services due to the software platforms that provide OPACs and activation of built-in service plugins available with the software. Thus, this study intended to fill the lacuna of OPAC service variabilities among the 15 state universities of Sri Lanka. The investigation questioned, the available types of OPAC software (free or fee), built-in services provided by those software platforms, and how far each university library adopted those services through the OPAC. This cross-sectional research conducted as an online survey what was taken place in the same computer lab facility at the University of Ruhuna, under same environmental, and connectivity situations. All the 15 university OPACs were loaded and evaluated simultaneously by 15 dedicated evaluators in dedicated computers. The evaluation conducted under four main characteristics that visible in OPACs in general, Accessibility, Interface, Promote reading, and Service diversity. All the 15 universities have adopted OPACs and 93% of them are using KOHA (Free) platform while 7% is still using the fee-based platform. Most of the library services have provided through the OPACs of many libraries, however, Laptop lending service, Article index service, plagiarism check and newspaper articles are specific services for some universities. It can be concluded that there is a variability among OPAC services provided by the universities and fulfilling these gaps of services can make a better service experience and passive marketing of services to the OPAC users of the library