The question of whether a library's catalog should consist of cards arranged in a single alphabetical order (the "dictionary catalog) or be segregated as a separate file is discussed. Development is extended to encompass related problems involved in the creation of a book catalog. A model to study the effects of congestion at the catalog is…

A study was made of the effectiveness of the Midwest Medical Union Catalog (MMUC). The literature on union catalogs characterizes the objectives and procedures of such catalogs, but gives little reliable data about costs and rarely focuses on traffic. The objective of this study is to determine whether the cost of the MMUC is justified by its…

Experiments were designed and carried out in an attempt to identify some parameters relating to ease of manual searching in library catalogs. A comparison of the difficulty of searching the same file in card form and book form indicated that searching the book catalog generally requires more time. (4 references) (Author/NH)

Twenty-nine questions to be asked before deciding on a book catalog are presented with comments based on the experience of the Baltimore County Public Library. The assumption made throughout this paper is that the work will be done by computer. (Author/NH)

A union list of pre-1801 books in British libraries has long been needed, but its compilation has always fallen outside the capacities of existing manual systems. This report discusses an experimental project to devise, test, and evaluate techniques for the compilation of such a union catalog. To scale down the proposed catalog for the experiment,…

Discusses current trends in catalog formats and describes the computer output microform catalog planned by the University of British Columbia Library. (PF)

The first in a series of annual cumulations, this 1980 dictionary catalog provides a single alphabetical listing of monographs published by New York State and cataloged by the state library during the year. Produced from OCLC machine readable records, the catalog lists citations in traditional dictionary catalog order; i.e., authors, titles,…

The report deals with one basic question: what does a large research library do when its catalog shows signs of serious deterioration? The catalog under consideration in this report was the Main Public Catalog of The Research Libraries of The New York Public Library. The catalog has nine million cards, some of which date back to 1857. A 1965…

To study the format, content, and rationale of public catalogs used at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) libraries, a questionnaire was sent to each of the campus libraries. The data collected included information on: 1) number of volumes in the library's collection; 2) number of drawers in its catalog; 3) physical arrangement of…

The focus of the January 1975 meeting of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) was the future of bibliographic records of library holdings. Speakers from the Library of Congress (LC) reported on historical problems associated with card catalogs and on plans for conversion to other forms. Speakers from large research libraries indicated a…

This working paper was prepared by a subcommittee of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Working Group on Public Catalogs. The material consists of cost estimates on generating, duplicating, and maintaining book catalogs and computer output microfiche catalogs. Included are costs estimates from the Ohio College Library Center…

This study, undertaken in the fall of 1965, had four basic objectives: (1) to determine the feasibility of centralizing the cataloging operation of the 3 library systems, (2) to determine the desirability of inter-system centralization of book preparation and acquisition, (3) to propose the operating procedures and mechanisms integral to any…

Though recent technological developments have promised solutions to the costly problems of expanding card catalogs and changing cataloging practices, at the University of California libraries the problems have been compounded by a desire to stay compatible with the changing conventions of the Library of Congress and by an increasingly stringent…

THE CATALOGING SYSTEM, DEVELOPED FOR A COLLECTION OF 45,000 REPORTS, IS BASED UPON SIMULTANEOUS PRODUCTION OF MACHINE-READABLE INPUT AND THREE BY FIVE CARDS TO BE USED IN A MANUAL FILE. A FLEXOWRITER WITH AN AUXILIARY PUNCH AND READER IS USED TO PRODUCE THE THREE TO SIXTY CARDS PER DOCUMENT WHICH DESCRIBE IT. PAPER TAPES OF THE UNIT RECORDS, ADDED…

An automated project for converting a library collection from Dewey Decimal to Library of Congress classification was compared with a manual reclassification project. The Joint University Libraries (JUL) of Vanderbilt University, George Peabody College for Teachers, and Scarrit College served as an example of manual reclassification. The JUL…