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The card catalog at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library goes almost completely unused, but adds to the austere atmosphere.
The card catalog at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library goes almost completely unused, but adds to the austere atmosphere. Sterling Memorial Library is the largest library at Yale University, containing over 4 million volumes
Another view of the SML card catalog.
Another view of the SML card catalog.

A library catalog (or library catalogue) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a particular library or group of libraries, such as those belonging to a university system spread out over several geographic locations. A library is a collection of information sources resources and services and the structure in which it is housed it is organized for use and maintained by a public body an institution A bibliographic item can be any information entity (e. g. , books, computer files, graphics, realia, cartographic materials, etc. Realia is a term used in Library science and Education to refer to certain real-life objects ), that is considered library material (e. g. , a single novel in an anthology), or a group of library materials (e. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story ANThology is the first Major label album by Alien Ant Farm released on March 6, 2001 in the USA and March 19 g. , a trilogy), or linked from the catalog (e. A trilogy is a set of three works of art usually Literature, Film, or Video games, that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or three g. , a webpage) as far as it is relevant to the catalog and to the users (patrons) of the library.

The card catalog was a familiar sight to library users for generations, but it has been effectively replaced by the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). An Online Public Access Catalog or OPAC (aka iPAC for Internet / Intranet Public Access Catalogue is a computerized online catalog Some still refer to the online catalog as a "card catalog", but this is incorrect. Some libraries with OPAC access still have card catalogs on site, but these are now strictly a secondary resource and are seldom updated. Many of the libraries that have retained their physical card catalog post a sign advising the last year that the card catalog was updated. Some libraries have eliminated their card catalog in favour of the OPAC for the purpose of saving space for other use, such as additional shelving.

Contents

Goal of a library catalog

Charles Ammi Cutter made the first explicit statement regarding the objectives of a bibliographic system in his Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalog in 1876. Charles Ammi Cutter ( 14 March 1837 – 6 September, 1903) is an important figure in the history of American Library science According to Cutter, those objectives were

1. to enable a person to find a book of which either (Identifying objective)

is known.

2. to show what the library has (Collocating objective)

3. to assist in the choice of a book (Evaluating objective)

These objectives can still be recognized in more modern definitions formulated thorougout the 20th century. 1960/61 Cutter's objectives were revised by Lubetzky and Lubetzky and the Conference on Cataloging Principles (CCP) in Paris. The latest attempt to describe a library catalog's goals and functions was made in 1998 with Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) which defines four user tasks: find, identify, select, and obtain. Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records -- or FRBR sometimes pronounced ( IPA pronunciation:) -- is a conceptual Entity-relationship model developed

Catalog types

Traditionally, there are the following types of catalog:

History

A card catalog in the University Library of Graz
A card catalog in the University Library of Graz

Library catalogs originated as manuscript lists, arranged by format (folio, quarto, etc. The University Library of Graz is the biggest scientific and public library in Styria and the third biggest in Austria. A manuscript is any Document that is Written by hand as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way The size of a specific Book is measured from the head to tail of the spine and from edge to edge across the covers ) or in a rough alphabetical arrangement by author. Printed catalogs, sometimes called dictionary catalogs enabled scholars outside a library to gain an idea of its contents. These would sometimes be interleaved with blank leaves on which additions could be recorded, or bound as guardbooks in which slips of paper were bound in for new entries. Slips could also be kept loose in cardboard or tin boxes, stored on shelves. The first card catalogs appeared in the nineteenth century, enabling much more flexibility, and towards the end of the twentieth century the OPAC was developed (see below). An index card is heavy Paper stock cut to a standard size Index cards are often used for recording individual items of information that can then be easily rearranged and filed

More about the early history of library catalogs has been collected in 1956 by Strout. [2]

Cataloging rules

Cataloging (or cataloguing) rules have been defined to allow for consistent cataloging of various library materials across several persons of a cataloging team and across time. Users can use them to clarify how to find an entry and how to interpret the data in an entry. Cataloging rules prescribe

The larger a collection, the more elaborate cataloging rules are needed. Users cannot and do not want to examine hundreds of catalog entries or even dozens of library items to find the one item they need.

Currently, most cataloging rules are similar to, or even based on, the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) to describe a wide range of library materials. The International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA to describe These rules organize the bibliographic description of an item in the following areas: title and statement of responsibility (author or editor), edition, material-dependent information (for example, the scale of a map), publication and distribution, physical description (for example, number of pages), series, note, and standard number (ISBN). A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, Regions, and Themes The most commonly used set of cataloging rules in the English speaking world are the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition, or AACR2 for short. AACR2 stands for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules Second Edition. In the German-speaking world there exists the Regeln für alphabetische Katalogisierung, abbreviated RAK. AACR2 has been translated into many languages, however, for use around the world. AACR2 provides rules for descriptive cataloging only and does not touch upon subject cataloging.

Library items that are written in a foreign script are, in some cases, transliterated to the script of the catalog. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice

Sorting

In a title catalog, one can distinguish two sort orders:

The grammatic sort order has the advantage that often, the most important word of the title is also a good keyword (question 3), and it is the word most users remember first when their memory is incomplete. However, it has the disadvantage that many elaborate grammatic rules are needed, so that only expert users may be able to search the catalog without help from a librarian.

In some catalogs, person's names are standardized, i. e. , the name of the person is always (catalogued and) sorted in a standard form, even if it appears differently in the library material. This standardization is achieved by a process called authority control. Authority control is a term used in Library and information science to refer to the practice of creating and maintaining Headings for bibliographic material in a An advantage of the authority control is that it is easier to answer question 2 (which works of some author does the library have?). On the other hand, it may be more difficult to answer question 1 (does the library have some specific material?) if the material spells the author in a peculiar variant. For the cataloguer, it may incur (too) much work to check whether Smith, J. is Smith, John or Smith, Jack.
For some works, even the title can be standardized. The technical term for this is uniform title. For example, translations and reeditions are sometimes sorted under their original title. In many catalogs, parts of the Bible are sorted under the standard name of the book(s) they contain. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin The plays of William Shakespeare are another frequently cited example of the role played by a uniform title in the library catalog.

Many complications about alphabetic sorting of entries arise. Some examples:

For a fuller discussion, see collation. José Ortega y Gasset ( May 9, 1883 - October 18, 1955) was a Spanish philosopher.

In a subject catalog, one has to decide on which classification system to use. Library classification forms part of the field of Library and information science. The cataloger will select appropriate subject headings for the bibliographic item and a unique classification number (sometimes known as a "call number") which is used not only for identification but also for the purposes of shelving, placing items with similar subjects near one another, which aids in browsing by library users, who are thus often able to take advantage of serendipity in their search process. Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate especially while looking for something else entirely

Online catalogs

Online cataloging has greatly enhanced the usability of catalogs, thanks to the rise of MAchine Readable Cataloging = MARC standards in the 1960s. MARC is an acronym used in the field of library science that stands for '''MA'''chine-'''R'''eadable '''C'''ataloging. Rules governing the creation of catalog MARC records include not only formal cataloging rules like AACR2 but also special rules specific to MARC, available from the Library of Congress and also OCLC. AACR2 stands for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules Second Edition. The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose MARC was originally used to automate the creation of physical catalog cards; Now the MARC computer files are accessed directly in the search process. OPACs have enhanced usability over traditional card formats because:

  1. The online catalog does not need to be sorted statically; the user can choose author, title, keyword, or systematic order dynamically.
  2. Most online catalogs offer a search facility for any word of the title; the goal of the grammatic word order (provide an entry on the word that most users would look for) is reached even better.
  3. Many online catalogs allow links between several variants of an author name. So, authors can be found both under the original and the standardised name (if entered properly by the cataloguer).

Searching with an OPAC

As noted above, the acronym OPAC means Online Public Access Catalog. An Online Public Access Catalog or OPAC (aka iPAC for Internet / Intranet Public Access Catalogue is a computerized online catalog

Many libraries have their catalog accessible via Internet; some of them can be queried using a simple browser, other using a special version of browser (with Javascript and CSS features), some others using Z39.50 clients. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a JavaScript is a Scripting language most often used for Client-side web development Z3950 is a Client-server protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote Computer databases

If you are looking for a book or another item, you can access to the OPAC of your nearest library and search for it there. If you cannot find a particular book in the catalog, it may be obtainable through interlibrary loan, also known to librarians as I. Interlibrary loan (abbreviated ILL, and sometimes called interloan, document delivery, or document supply etc L. L. Ask the nearest Reference librarian for assistance.

If you want to look if a book exists and you have few elements to identify it, you can use a meta-searcher: you can fill the query form once and spread you search over many library catalogues. A service such as MultiOpac does this task for you.

Another option is to use a union catalog, in which many libraries have combined their entire holdings into one database. A union catalog is a combined Library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. The largest union catalog is OCLC's WorldCat. WorldCat is a Union catalog which itemizes the collections of more than 10000 libraries which participate in the OCLC global cooperative

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Micheau, Francoise, “The Scientific Institutions in the Medieval Near East”, pp. The International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA to describe A union catalog is a combined Library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Dialcat was a remote character-based Interface used to access Dynix -based library catalogs. Evergreen is an Open source, consortial-quality Integrated Library System (ILS initially developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for PINES An integrated library system, or ILS, is an Enterprise resource planning system for a Library, used to track items owned orders made bills paid and patrons 988-991  in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp.  985-1007)
  2. ^ Strout, R. F. (1956), "The development of the catalog and cataloging rules", Library Quarterly, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 254–75.

References

External links

Library science is an Interdisciplinary Science incorporating the Humanities, Law and Applied science to study topics related to A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content using a simplified Markup language.

Dictionary

library catalog

-noun

  1. A register of all bibliographic items found in a particular library or group of libraries, such as those belonging to a university system spread out over several geographic locations.
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