The Role of OPACs in User's Social interactivity: Current Strategies and the Extent to which University OPACs Follow them

OPACs are regarded as one of the most important intermediaries between library users and their collections. Through them one can find, identify and access desired information resources. A while ago, the very nature of OPACs made holdings of libraries and information centers available throughout the world but the real interaction between users and the collection was far beyond reach. Now through new technologies, such as Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and OPAC 2.0, a higher level of user interaction is possible. The first part of this paper identified a set of OPAC 2.0 elements. A checklist was prepared based on these elements, then using it, 7 different OPAC softwares were assessed. Among the studied OPACs, “Sana” was identified as the most successful OPAC in both searching and social facilities. Regarding these social facilities, “ParsAzarakhsh” and “Parvan” were in a rather good state. Moreover, “Oracle”, “Parvan” and “Payam” were in a fairly poor state for the searching facilities; and “Simorgh functionality was not acceptable when social facilities were considered. The overall score of all these OPACs was higher in searching than social facilities.