• Journal of Information Management
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.1-39
• /
• 1996

The purpose of this paper is to design a model of integrated OPAC called as EconRef. This model not only provides users of libraries with systematic, rapid information service, but also supports librarians to do their tasks effectively. The designed model is constructed based on two operating systems such as REGIS system and The Book House and is developed by using KPWin++ is an expert system shell which combines hypertext and expert system functions. The designed system consists of six modules ; three reference expert systems for document sources, experts and statistical sources; OPAC ; external database ; user's guide. For the evaluation of the designed system, performance of EconRef system is compared with that of the naive and expert reference librarians. And also the features of the system are compared with those of REGIS systems. The tests comparing BconRef system searching with librarians searching have shown that EconRef system is at least as good as searching with expert librarians and much superior to searching with naive librarians.