An in-house course guide and mini OPAC at the IIT Jammu Central Library: a practitioner case study

Purpose This paper aims to examine the course guide and mini online public access catalog (OPAC) which is created, implemented and deployed by the Central Library at IIT Jammu. This static page is developed to provide the access to course-related textbooks, subscribed e-resources and student dashboard, to overcome the limitations of conventional OPAC searches. Design/methodology/approach The idea is to create a static HTML, CSS and JavaScript webpage that is complimented with a Firebase Firestore analytics component and directed to the institute’s Koha Integrated Library System. Instead of using controlled experimental methods, this paper is based on real deployment data and descriptive measures of actual usage. Findings Course-specific textbook availability pages, one nation, one subscription e-resource tagging, a self-service student dashboard, a recommendation badge enabled by Firestore and a suggestion panel for the full catalog are some of the system’s key features. Analytical samples suggest that the badge system functions as intended. However, it was unable to independently check the client-side search architecture, Firestore Security Rules and exact badge threshold against source code; these are reported as reproducibility gaps rather than estimates. Originality/value This paper offers a documented, source-verified case study of a static-first, managed-services architecture for course-aware resource discovery within an Indian academic library context. Positioned within the SubjectPlus and LibGuides literature, it proposes three testable hypotheses for future controlled evaluation of the system’s behavioral impact, which remain unverified at the time of writing.