The growth of the OPAC literature

Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs), despite their recent arrival in the library and information science world, have had a great impact because they have to be designed for the library user. In the few years of their existence the body of literature created cannot be regarded as insignificant. The analysis of the 1970–1985 OPAC literature shows that it could be a very good example of logistic growth. The literature had an initial growth rate of b = .556 (or 74.4% per year), with a corresponding doubling time of 1.25 years, which was probably due to the prolific CLR study. Then, approximate point of inflection in 1984, it started levelling off. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.