(with apologies for cross-posting)

Introducing COPAC
-----------------
COPAC is a new internationally accessible catalogue. Based at the
University of Manchester, COPAC provides unified access to the
consolidated 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. 4.7 million
records. These represent the merged online library catalogues of:

 - Cambridge University 
 - Edinburgh University
 - Glasgow University
 - Imperial College of Science, technology and Medicine
 - Leeds University
 - Nottingham University
 - Oxford University
 - Trinity College Dublin
 - University College London
 - University of London Library

The records from a further thirteen university library catalogues will
be added in due course. Material from further libraries may be added
in the future.

As well as providing general coverage of a very wide range of subject
areas, 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. Records for materials published pre-1900 make up c.4% of
the database and the proportion of older materials is growing. Some
27% of the records represent foreign language materials, including
minority languages such as Welsh. Again, this is increasing as more
foreign language collections are brought online.

Most COPAC records are for books, reports etc. but there are
increasing numbers for other materials such as printed and recorded
music, and video.  Records for periodicals make up some 4% of the
COPAC database.


How do you access COPAC?
------------------------
Two easy  to use interfaces are available:

A WWW Interface:
  http://copac.ac.uk/copac/

A Text Interface:
  Telnet: copac.ac.uk
  username: copac
  password: copac

You can search using title words, author and organisation names,
subject words, date, language and library. You can display search
results and download records in a format designed to make the records
easy to incorporate personal bibliographic software.


Help and Advice
---------------
Online search assistance is provided and printed User Guides are
available for both interfaces. Postscript versions of the User Guides
are available for downloading at: http://copac.ac.uk/copac/userguide/

The User Guides are also available online via the introductory screen
for each interface.

For further assistance or information contact:
The COPAC Helpdesk:	
Email:	[log in to unmask] 
Tel: 	0161 275 6037
Fax:	0161 275 6040

- COPAC is funded by JISC and uses records provided by the Consortium of 
University Research Libraries -

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Shirley Cousins                             - The COPAC project is 
COPAC Help Desk ([log in to unmask])               funded by JISC and uses  
COPAC Project, Manchester Computing,            data supplied by CURL -
University of Manchester
Oxford Road,  Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Fax:  0161 275 6040   Tel:  0161 275 6037


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