The Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)
Every staff member ought to know how to find an item using the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), one of the cornerstone resources we offer our patrons. You may hear it called Novanet or the Catalogue; here it will be referred to as the OPAC.
All of the public terminals display a desktop icon directly linking you to the OPAC. It looks like this:
All of the public terminals display a desktop icon directly linking you to the OPAC. It looks like this:
Select this icon and you are taken to the OPAC home page:
This is your starting point for searching the catalogue of all the Novanet Libraries.
At the top is a row of buttons that allow you to target your search to parts of the entire database:
At the top is a row of buttons that allow you to target your search to parts of the entire database:
The first choice, searching the full catalogue, is the system's default.
Select the second, and you will be searching just the part of the database that is catalogued as Journals.
If you wish to check the Reserves collection alone, choose the third tab.
If you want to limit your search to one library alone, choose 'Select a Library'. When you do so, you are presented with a list of all the Novanet Libraries, and you then select the one whose collection you wish to visit.
Select the second, and you will be searching just the part of the database that is catalogued as Journals.
If you wish to check the Reserves collection alone, choose the third tab.
If you want to limit your search to one library alone, choose 'Select a Library'. When you do so, you are presented with a list of all the Novanet Libraries, and you then select the one whose collection you wish to visit.
The Select a Library list looks like this:
- For example, if you only wanted to find materials from SMU, click on 'Saint Mary's University'. Until you modify this search parameter, or until you close the OPAC, your results are limited to Saint Mary's only.
The final tab, 'Specific Collections', allows you to limit your search to specific types of materials.
There is another way to travel to the OPAC, directly through the library's webpage: