CD‐CAT: catalogue output on CD‐ROM

Many libraries have expressed an interest in the possibility of using CD‐ROM to provide an interactive public access catalogue, as an alternative to fiche‐based products and to providing online access to the networked library system. Similarly, many systems suppliers have included CD‐ROM in their list of future developments. However, to date in the UK, there have been few moves to introduce CD‐ROM‐based library catalogues. One of the first library systems' suppliers to provide a CD‐ROM product is CLSI; as with all CD‐ROM products, it has found its first users in the US market, though it is available to all CLSI customers. In the US, libraries have turned to CD‐ROM sometimes as an interim solution between manual or fiche catalogues and an integrated online public catalogue or, sometimes, when the multi‐site nature of the organisation or cooperation between library organisations made a union catalogue necessary. In these cases, the enhanced and interactive searching available on CD‐ROM made it a preferable option to fiche or other passive catalogue forms. This article does not discuss the feasibility of CD‐ROM for library catalogues; these arguments have been covered elsewhere, for example in the report by John Akeroyd et al to the British Library Research & Development Department. This article is a purely descriptive account of one commercial product which happens to be the first available in the UK aimed specifically at providing an interface similar to that available on an OPAC. In this instance the OPAC in question is CL‐CAT; CD‐CAT emulates the facilities and searching available on CLSI's online CL‐CAT, but takes advantage of the power of the CD workstation (the PC) to make greater use of features such as windows, colour and output to print files.