Eureka was the
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
for general users of the Research Library Information Network (RLIN), a bibliographic resource containing records from libraries that were members of
Research Libraries Group The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium that existed from 1974 until its merger with the OCLC library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliographi ...
(RLG). Eureka had the capacity to search among approximately 45 million different titles. Most of the catalog was from major research libraries and museums in the United States. Despite the
OPAC
The online public access catalog (OPAC), now frequently synonymous with '' library catalog'', is an online database of materials held by a library or group of libraries. Online catalogs have largely replaced the analog card catalogs previously ...
formulation, Eureka technically was not a public access
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
. It was generally accessible only from networks connected to research institutions such as
universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
.
Following the 2006 merger of RLG into
OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
, the Eureka databases were migrated to OCLC's FirstSearch in 2007.
["Twelve former Eureka databases are now available in OCLC FirstSearch"]
See also
*
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
References
Bibliographic databases and indexes
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