catalog (redirected from catalogs)

catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. The library at Pergamum also had a catalog. Early in the 9th cent. A.D. the catalogs of the libraries of the monastery at Reichenau and of the abbey at Saint-Riquier, N France, included summaries of the works cataloged. In 1472 the monastic library at Clairvaux was recataloged and one of the earliest union catalogs was made—of the contents of 160 Franciscan monastery libraries in England. In 1475 the Vatican librarian, Platina, cataloged that library's 2,527 volumes. About 1660 Clement, librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi under Louis XIV, compiled a subject catalog and inventory of manuscripts. The printing of the British Museum catalog was begun by Panizzi as keeper (1837–56) of printed books. Charles A. Cutter devised the modern dictionary catalog (with author, title, and subject arranged in one alphabet) for the Boston Athenaeum library. Melvil Dewey devised his decimal system in the 1870s; the system was widely applied in smaller libraries and many large ones. In 1901 the Library of Congress began the practice of printing its catalog entries on cards 3 by 5 in. (7.6 by 12.7 cm) and distributing them to other libraries for a small fee. The National Union Catalogue, begun in 1952 by the Library of Congress, collated the card catalog entries of the larger American libraries and printed the results in book form. The advent of the computer has dramatically expanded the ability of libraries to provide extensive bibliographic services. By consulting an electronic catalog, such as the WorldCat of the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, a person can access more than 35 million catalog records in some 25,000 libraries around the world.

Bibliography

See M. Gorman and P. Winkler, ed., Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (1988); S. L. Hopkinson, Descriptive Cataloging of Library Materials (1977).

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catalog

A directory of disk files or files used in an application. Also any map, list or directory of storage space used by the computer.

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catalogue (US), catalog

1. a book, usually illustrated, containing details of items for sale, esp as used by mail-order companies

2. US and Canadian a publication issued by a university, college, etc., listing courses offered, regulations, services, etc.

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catalog [′kad·əl‚äg]

(computer science)

All the indexes to data sets or files in a system.

The index to all other indexes; the master index.

To add an entry to an index or to build an entire new index.

A list of items in a data storage device, usually arranged so that a particular kind of information can be located easily.