OPAC WWW - A LIBRARY BUSINESS CARD. EVALUATING OPACS OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED POLISH LIBRARIES (OPAC WWW wizytowka biblioteki. Ocena jakosci katalogów komputerowych malych i srednich bibliotek w Polsce)

The library catalog, as any other information retrieval system, is expected to provide its users with efficient methods of information search and retrieval. The authorerss attempts to evaluate the quality (understood as the comprehensiveness and precision of information retrieval) of online catalogs of small and medium-sized libraries using the following integrated library systems: MOL OPTIVUM, LIBRA 2000, PATRON, MAK and SOWA. The evaluation is based on the analysis of 93 OPACs of school, pedagogy, private university and public libraries. The following factors were taken into consideration: the quality of data, software and general information on the system and its content. The results of the research point to potentially low efficiency of analyzed OPACs as regards the comprehensiveness and precision of information they offer. .