Bibliographic displays of web-based OPACs:: Multivariate analysis applied to Latin-American catalogues

Library online public access catalogues (OPACs) are automated information retrieval systems that constitute the most readily available source of information for non-professional users. Web-based OPACs represent a huge step forward in the development of user interfaces for catalogues. The present study evaluates Latin American OPACs against a checklist for full bibliographic display in web-based OPACs, developed at the University of Toronto. The checklist contains four sections that cover the most important facets of the OPAC: 1) labels, 2) text, 3) instructional information, and 4) page layout. Finally, multivariate analysis methods are applied to the results. Such techniques include 1) cluster analysis, 2) principal components analysis (PCA), and 3) multidimensional scaling (MDS).