“The great pig roast”

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of the next generation OPAC, and several proposed solutions to that problem.

This is an exploratory paper. It examines several proposals for reinventing the traditional library OPAC into a more relevant, user centered system.

Libraries need to seriously re‐evaluate the relevance of the online public access catalog as it exists today. There are no one size fits all solutions given the rapidly changing information environment libraries find themselves in today.

This paper provides points of discussion for professional librarians and library staff to engage in as they consider to future of the OPAC. Several key members of the library technology community are cited, and may provide further information on this important topic.