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Reviews the development of cataloging in the Acquisitions‐Catalog‐Classification Department of the University of Haifa Library against the technological changes that have taken place throughout the world. These changes have strengthened the basic assumption that maximum use should be made of the bibliographic information available from other libraries in Israel and abroad for the university library to become part of the international bibliographic system and in order to save resources. The various stages of the work process are analysed and the role of MARC explained.

For historical reasons, the Austrian National Library (ANL) had only 10 per cent of its 2.9 million items available in its OPAC as of 1997. Its unique holdings from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries could still only be found via card catalogs. In order to make these unique collections accessible via the Web, the library scanned each catalog card into a digital image. An in‐house software application called KatZoom was used to browse and search the catalog card images. Within less than half a year, ANL’s unique holdings became accessible via the Web. At a later time, these digital images were converted to electronic text and incorporated into the local library systems.

It was a great pleasure to read your lucid exposition of the problem of our catalog and very profitable to reflect on your thoughtful solution. Your careful statement requires an equally careful analysis. Let me attempt one:

Illustrates the methods of pointing to remotely‐accessible electronic resources in libraries in a university system ranging from research centers to community colleges. The online catalogs of libraries in the State University of New York (SUNY) system were tested for remotely‐accessible electronic resources. Each library's internet home page was also searched for means of linking to journal titles. The libraries at SUNY campuses have shown different responses to the issues of making available aggregator databases, web sites, and e‐books. A marked decrease in the use of the online catalog to make available remotely‐accessible electronic resources at academic libraries other than those at the research level was noted. The findings are limited insofar that no effort was made to determine the reasons why each library did or not include records for remotely‐accessible electronic resources in their online catalogs. Academic libraries find desirable a single search interface for remotely‐accessible electronic resources, and this may include the library's online catalog. This study will be of value to those who are concerned with the ways in which remotely‐accessible electronic resources are made available in various sizes of academic libraries, particularly those engaged in decision making about online resources.

In June 1998 Oakland University’s library migrated to a new online catalog. In order to determine user acceptance of the new OPAC, students receiving library instruction were asked to complete an open‐ended questionnaire eliciting comments on their likes, dislikes and online catalog preference. From the data collected, a second questionnaire was designed and distributed that focused on specific features of the new catalog identified in the first survey. Results indicated that users overwhelmingly preferred the new OPAC and found it easy to use; however, they experienced some difficulty using special features like truncation. The most popular feature of the new catalog was its remote access capability. Second‐generation OPACs possess features – such as electronic reserves capabilities and hypertext links – that are beginning to simplify the search process; but they have not yet developed into the intuitive, comprehensive systems that can empower users to seek information in new ways.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

The study described in this paper aims to identify the progress made in the efforts to model current online public access catalogs (OPACs) after the next generation catalog (NGC) in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

A random sample of 260 colleges and universities was selected from Peterson's Guide to Four‐Year Colleges 2009, an estimated 10 percent of the total population of 2,560 listed academic institutions. A checklist of 12 features of the NGC was used to evaluate the OPACs of the 260 libraries in the sample. The authors took as the OPAC that which the library linked to as its “catalog,” even though some might be more properly considered “discovery tools” or “discovery layers.” Some libraries used more than one OPAC interface simultaneously; in this case, each OPAC was analyzed separately. In the case of several institutions using the same consortial OPAC, only the first instance of the OPAC was analyzed. About 15 percent of the institutions (n=40) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. In all, a total of 233 unique instances of OPACs were analyzed. Data were collected from September 2009 through July 2010. The findings can be extrapolated to the population at the 95 percent confidence level with a confidence interval of ±3.

While bits and pieces of the next generation catalog are steadily working themselves into the current catalog, academic libraries still have a long way to go. About 16 percent of the OPACs in the sample did not show any advanced features of the NGC. More than half of the libraries (61 percent) had only one to five advanced features in their OPACs. Many of those with six or more NGC features were discovery tools. Only 3 percent of the OPACs in the sample (n=8) demonstrated seven to ten out of the 12 functionalities of the NGC, and they were instances either of WorldCat Local or Summon. The weak areas were federated searching, relevance based on circulation statistics, and recommendations based on patron transactions.

This is the first and only study on a large scale conducted thus far that evaluates the progress towards the NGC in academic libraries in the USA and Canada. The findings help academic librarians to recognize and pin‐point the weak links in implementing a true next generation catalog.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare open source and proprietary discovery tools and find out how much discovery tools have achieved towards becoming the next generation catalog.

The paper summarizes characteristics of the next generation catalog into a check‐list of 12 features. This list was checked against each of seven open source and ten proprietary discovery tools to determine if those features were present or absent in those tools.

Discovery tools have many next generation catalog features, but only a few can be called real next generation catalogs. Federated searching and relevancy based on circulation statistics are the two areas that both open source and proprietary discovery tools are missing. Open source discovery tools seem to be bolder and more innovative than proprietary tools in embracing advanced features of the next generation catalog. Vendors of discovery tools may need to quicken their steps in catching up.

It is the first evaluation and comparison of open source and proprietary discovery tools on a large scale. It will provide information as to exactly where discovery tools stand in light of the much desired next generation catalog.

INTRODUCTION Computers and new information technologies have beyond question brought tremendous advancement in information storage and retrieval. In recent years, the traditional card catalog has given way first to the COM (computer output on microform) catalog, then to the online catalog. Now, many libraries are shifting to the new capability in order to provide better and faster services to their patrons.

This paper aims to determine the current usage of next generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discovery tools in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

Using the same random sample of 260 colleges and universities in the USA and Canada from their original study, the authors revisited each institution's library web page to ascertain whether the OPAC interface(s) offered were the same or different than in their initial data collection. Data was collected and analyzed in October and November 2011.

Discovery tool use has practically doubled in the last two years, from 16 percent to 29 percent. A total of 96 percent of academic libraries using discovery tools still provide access to their legacy catalog. The percentage of institutions using ILS OPACs with faceted navigation has increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. Combining the use of discovery tools and faceted OPACs, at least 33 percent of academic libraries are now using a faceted interface. Discovery tools that aim to be the “single point of entry for all library resources” are the most recently popular.

About 16 percent of the institutions (n=43) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. Thus, some data might be underreported.

The findings identify trends that may inform academic libraries in the quest to providing next generation interfaces to their varied resources.

This study gives a timely update of next generation catalog (NGC) and discovery tool usage in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.