What is COPAC?
COPAC is a new nationally accessible Online Public Access
Catalogue. Based at the University of Manchester, COPAC provides
searchers with centralised access to the online catalogues of some of
the largest university research libraries in the UK and Ireland. COPAC
is normally available 24 hours a day 365 days a year and access is
free of charge.
What does COPAC contain?
The COPAC database currently contains approx. 2.7 million
records. These represent the merged online library catalogues of:
Cambridge University
Edinburgh University
Glasgow University
Leeds University
Oxford University
The records from a further nine university library catalogues will be added during 1996/97 and there are plans for the incorporation of material from further libraries in the future.
These large research libraries have many older documents, specialist collections and particular strengths, such as foreign language materials, which make COPAC a very valuable resource for the researcher. COPAC contains records for materials ranging from 1100 to current. At the moment approx. 3% of the database consists of materials published pre-1900 and the proportion of older materials is growing. Similarly, whilst the English language predominates, some 27% of COPAC records represent foreign language materials, including minority languages such as Welsh. This proportion is increasing as records for foreign language collections are brought online.
Most of the COPAC records are for books, reports etc. but there are increasing numbers of records for other materials such as printed and recorded music, and video. Records for journals and other periodicals make up some 4% of the COPAC database.
COPAC: database updating
The COPAC database is continually growing as libraries add new records
on a regular basis. In addition, as the libraries' collections
change, records are deleted and corrections to existing records are
made, ensuring the maintenance of database currency and quality.
How do you access COPAC?
Two easy to use interfaces are available for accessing COPAC:
Searching is possible using title words, author and organisation names, subject words, date and language. Results can be displayed and, in the text interface, records can be emailed to your local system in a format which can be accepted by personal bibliographic software.
Help and Advice
Online search assistance is provided on both the VT100 and Web Interface.
Postscript versions of the User Guides for both interfaces are
available for downloading at:
http://copac.ac.uk/copac/userguide/
The Web User Guide is also available as a Web page at:
http://copac.ac.uk/copac/webug.html
For further assistance or information contact:
The COPAC Helpdesk:
Tel: 0161 275 6037
Fax: 0161 275 6040
Email: copac@mcc
COPAC Help Desk (copac@mcc.ac.uk)
CURL OPAC Project
National Services Group
Manchester Computing
Computer Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Fax: 0161 275 6040
Tel: 0161 275 6037
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