Okapi: developing an intelligently interactive online catalogue

Abstract

This article contains a description of the third phase of development of Okapi, the online catalogue developed at the Polytechnic of Central London. The first phase of development (Okapi Version 1,1984) resulted in the seminal report “Designing an online public access catalogue” ; the second phase (Okapi, Version 2, 1986) looked at techniques for word stemming, spelling checks and at the feasibility of incorporating these in both subject (unknown item) and author/title (known item) approaches. The third and current phase of work (Okapi Version 3, 1988) has been looking at methods of automatically enhancing the handling of subject enquiries. As with all the Okapi work, the focus is on developing a simple, unambiguous user‐interface which uses intelligent processing to optimise retrieval.

Citation

(1988), "Okapi: developing an intelligently interactive online catalogue", VINE, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 4-11. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb060018