Different Types of Card Catalog

By Jen E. Ballat

What is a card catalog? According to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), a catalog (as of books) in

which the entries are arranged systematically on cards. There are five card catalogs: author
catalog, title catalog, subject catalog, shelflist catalog, and specialized shelflist catalog.
These catalogs have their own uniqueness, but how do they differ?

From the word itself ‘author’, the last name of the author will first appear on the card, next is
the title of the book and publishing information, and the last that you will find on the bottom
is the list of three to five main subjects that correspond with the book. In comparison to the
author catalog, the title of the book will appear first in the card, next is the name of the
author, then publishing information and subjects. Similar to the two types above, in the
subject catalog the main ‘subject’ of the title is the first thing that you will see. Another
characteristic of this card is its capacity to have multiple entries of the same book. As for the
shelflist catalog, it is not available in the public, it also contains the location of the books and
other materials in the library. This catalog combines all author’s names, titles, etc. Finally the
last type, which is the specialized shelflist catalog, is also arranged by subject and provides a
large large holdings of music, scientific research and other special collections. In specialized
shelflist catalogs you can locate the specific parts of the book that are not part of the general
collection.

To sum up, ‘author’ is first found in the author catalog, ‘title’ is first found in title catalog,
‘subject’ is first found in subject catalog, shelflist is not for the public and contains a variety
of information, and specialized shelflist is used to locate specific parts of the book.

References

Merriam-Webster Incorporated. (n.d.). Card catalog. Retrieved from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/card%20catalog

Types of card catalog. (2018). Retrieved from

https://classroom.synonym.com/types-card-catalogs-5449148.html