OPAC

The OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) is Lyra’s patron-facing catalog — it’s your library’s website, where students browse, search, place holds, and see what they have checked out and on hold. This section covers both the model (how the OPAC is configured) and the walkthrough from the patron’s seat, so staff can answer “what does it look like from where the patron sits?”

What the OPAC is

The OPAC is a web app at a per-library URL. Each library has its own OPAC URL; a school with three libraries has three OPACs, each scoped to its library’s collection. (The URL is built from the library’s web address; see Setting up the OPAC.)

The OPAC is mobile-responsive. Patrons can use it on a phone, tablet, or desktop browser. There’s no separate native iOS or Android app to install; both the OPAC and the staff app are web-based.

The OPAC is off until you turn it on

The OPAC is not on by default. A new school’s catalog is empty, so the onboarding wizard skips it; you run the OPAC’s own setup wizard later, once you’ve imported enough of a catalog (the wizard appears once the library has about a dozen copies).

When you’re ready, the setup wizard lives on the screen: OPAC settings page. It handles the per-library web address, and the visit mode and patron sign-in configuration.

The patron surfaces

Each surface a patron touches has its own page:

Setup & sign-inTurning the OPAC on with the setup wizard, the two visit modes (With their class and On their own), how students sign in, and sharing the catalog by link or QR code.ReadListsThe browse rows on the homepage — librarian-curated carousels and the automatic New arrivals and Most checked out rows.ReadSearch & holdsSearch by title, author, series, ISBN or topic, the item detail page, placing a hold, and the My stuff view where patrons see their own loans and holds.ReadMy classThe roster-and-loans view a signed-in teacher gets for their own homeroom.Read

What patrons can and can’t do

A short summary of the surface area:

Patron can	Patron can’t
Browse lists	Add or edit items
Search and filter the catalog	Search by exact author or title shortcuts
See whether an item is available	Reserve a specific copy
Place a hold	Re-order the hold queue
Cancel their own hold	Cancel another patron’s hold
See their own checkouts and holds	See another patron’s anything
Renew their own loans	Override a renewal limit
Sign in and out	Self-check out or see prior history
Switch between grid and list view	Re-sort a list or the search results

Self-checkout is the big “can’t” worth being explicit about. The OPAC is browse-and-hold; an actual checkout requires staff at the desk. Renewing is the exception: a patron can renew their own loans from screen: My stuff, under the same limits the desk applies, unless the library has turned patron renewals off.

See also

• Setting up the OPAC covers turning it on, the two visit modes, and the three sign-in methods, including the default-plus-per-grade-override model.
• Homerooms explains how the With their class visit mode uses the homeroom object.
• Lists covers the carousels patrons see on the homepage.
• Holds is the underlying lifecycle for the hold a patron places from this surface.
• Notices covers the emails patrons receive about their holds and overdue items.