How an archival file or a book record is shown in the public catalog (OPAC) is not a layout detail. A three-field book —title, author, year— is read as a list. A file with scope, context and access-condition notes is read as a document. If both are presented the same way, the first has too much air and the second becomes a column of labels nobody walks through.
In Janium 2027 the display changes according to what the record brings. The version is in Janium 2027 is now available.
Short fields in a list, notes as a paragraph
In the OPAC and in the cataloging detail view, short fields stay in a list: title, author, year, publisher, classification. They are data compared at a glance, and a catalog reader expects to see them aligned.
Narrative fields —summary, notes, archival description— display as a paragraph, label above, as in a printed document. A twenty-line scope note is not a list value; it is prose, and it reads better if it is presented as prose.
That mix is the usual layout of a book: a few short fields, a brief summary. Whoever consults the catalog recognizes the familiar record, with the longer notes already in a paragraph.
When the record is a file
If the record has many long notes —a file, a fonds, a series— the whole display switches to that narrative layout. It makes little sense to leave the title in a list and push the rest into a block of prose: the whole is read as an archival document.
An ISAD-G record with scope and context notes is not read the same way as a three-field record. 2027 does not change the standard; it changes how it is presented. Description by provenance and hierarchy is in How to describe an archive in ISAD-G with AI. Janium displays that description; it does not rewrite it.
See more, see less
When the summary is long, the result list offers see more or see less. The list does not inflate with the whole paragraph; whoever wants the text opens it. On the detail record the paragraph is shown in full.
That applies both to a book with a long summary and to a file whose scope does not fit in two lines. The criterion is the length of the field, not the type of material.
What does not change
The description standard remains the institution’s. MARC, Dublin Core and ISAD-G are not converted into another format when they are displayed. What changes is the template: list, paragraph or both, according to what the record brings.
The OPAC display is part of the version. It does not have to be turned on separately, unlike the search engine or covers. After the update, the public catalog already presents records this way.
Collect does not intervene here. Collect produces the record; Janium displays it. An ILS does not catalog with AI by presenting notes better.
Limits
The presentation does not add fields or summarize them. If the record has no notes, the display stays a list. If it has many, it switches to narrative; there is no threshold the institution adjusts by type of material beyond what each record already brings.
See more / see less applies to the summary in the result list, not to each note on the detail record. A poorly described file —no scope, no context— does not become readable by a change of template: it looks equally incomplete, only in another layout.
To continue the conversation
If you want to see how a file from your fonds sits next to a book from the general collection in the 2027 OPAC, write to us at info@janium.com. The kind of holding changes which record is worth looking at first when you update.