Although radiOM.org is more of a collection than an OPAC, I was introduced to the site in a Fine Arts Library reference meeting as a tool to help students and researchers find the information they need. As such, it may be added to the Library's resources page, thus making it part of our own UT OPAC, in a somewhat roundabout sort of way. But because it is often hard for institutional libraries to meet all of the multimedia needs of their patrons, I believe that resources such as this are becoming an integral tool in most university OPAC's.
Having made my argument for why radiOM deserves consideration as an OPAC, I will now discuss how it falls short.
According to radioOM's website,
Material available on radiOM.org has been selected from the ever growing archives of Other Minds tapes contain live conversations, interviews, and performances with many of the innovative musicians who created 20. Here you will find recordings of OM's past music festivals and concert productions, selected recordings of new music sent to us by composers from around the world, and selections from 4000 hours of audiotape recordings from the KPFA Radio Music Department collection transferred to Other Minds in 2000. The KFPAth Century new music. Check our site weekly for new additions. At least five new programs are made available each month.
And indeed the site's holdings are vast. However, users must register to actually listen to any materials. Registration is relatively quick and painless, but this sort of detract from the openness associated with most OPAC's.
One appealing aspect of the site's structure is the inclusion of Library of Congress Subject Headings associated with each piece. However, no call numbers or citation information that could be used for scholarly purposes is available.
Additionally, search functions on the site are limited at best. Apparently, only keyword searches are available, which is useful if you are doing a somewhat general search, but could become frustrating if you needed something specific. Also, I don't believe searches include the full text of interviews or the body of works in general. Although this is not a standard feature of most OPAC's, for a subject specific site such as this with relatively small holdings, the addition of text searches could prove very useful.
Overall, the site is a useful supplementary tool for traditional OPAC's. However, the limited searchability renders the site somewhat uninteroperable.
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