Greg Ching^*
*Correspondence: Greg Ching, Department of Computer Information, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan City, Taiwan, Email:

Received: 06-Dec-2021 Published: 27-Dec-2021

Editorial Note

A library catalogue is a list of all bibliographic items in a library or a set of libraries, such as a network of libraries spread across multiple sites. A union catalogue is a catalogue that serves a group of libraries. A bibliographic item can be any type of information entity, such as books, computer files, graphics, realia, cartographic materials, and so on, that is considered library material, or a group of library materials, or linked from the catalogue as long as it is relevant to the catalogue and to library patrons.

For centuries, library visitors were familiar with the card catalogue, but it has been mostly supplanted by the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), which is an online database of resources maintained by a library or a group of libraries. Online catalogues have mostly superseded the analogue card catalogues used in libraries earlier. Some libraries with OPAC access still retain card catalogues on hand, however these are now mostly used as a backup and are rarely updated. Many libraries that save their physical card catalogues will display a notice marking the most recent year the catalogue was updated. To free up room for other uses, such as additional shelving, several libraries have discarded their card catalogue in favor of the OPAC.

There are two types of sort orders in a title catalogue. To begin, the most essential word in the title is the first sort term in the grammatical sort order, which is mostly utilized in earlier catalogues. Grammatical norms determine the value of a word; for example, the first noun may be classified as the most important word. Second, the first word in the title is the first sort phrase in the mechanical sort order. Most modern catalogues follow this technique, although there is still a holdover of the grammatical sort order, in which an article at the start of the title is overlooked. The grammatical sort order seems to have the advantage that the most essential word in the title is often also a good keyword, and most people remember it first when their memory is uncertain. However, because numerous complex grammatical rules are required, only professional users may be able to search the catalogue without assistance from a librarian.

In a subject catalogue, the classification system to utilize must be decided. The cataloger will choose appropriate subject headings for the bibliographic item as well as a unique classification number that will be used not only for identification but also for shelving, grouping items with similar subjects together to aid browsing by library users, who will be able to benefit from serendipity in their search process. Even the title of some works can be standardized. Uniform title is the technical word for this. Translations and re-editions, for example, are occasionally grouped by their original title. Parts of the Bible are grouped in several catalogues by the conventional name of the books they contain.

Many issues with alphabetical sorting of entries emerged. Some languages have different sorting conventions than the catalogue language. Second, some titles have numerals in them. Cataloging characterizes resources by offering data such as creator names, titles, and subject words, which is normally done through compiling bibliographic entries. The records serve as stand-ins for the stored information resources.