Shelf CCataloging Basics for Church Resource Shelves

A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or in a group of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group is also called a union catalog. For you, that means one bookcase in the fellowship hall can have the same logic as a group of parish libraries that lend across town. A bibliographic item can be a book, a computer file, a graphic, realia, or a cartographic item. It can be a single novel inside an anthology, a group such as a trilogy, or a webpage linked from the catalog when relevant to the catalog and its patrons. Think of a VBS kit with a leader book, a music disc, and a craft packet as one linked set, and think of each study guide as retrievable on its own when a teacher asks for it.

The earliest library catalogs were lists, handwritten or inscribed on clay tablets and later on scrolls of parchment or paper. As codices replaced scrolls, catalogs became more like handwritten ledgers and, in some cases, printed books. During the late 18th century through the mid-19th century, cataloging on paper slips or cards gradually replaced ledgers and books as the main medium, and in the 20th century the card catalog was a familiar sight for generations. Computerized cataloging developed gradually from the mid-20th century, and by the late 20th and early 21st century it had mostly replaced card catalogs. The arrival of the web brought ubiquitous use of online public access catalogs, known as OPACs, although some people still informally call the online catalog a card catalog.

A catalog card is an individual entry containing bibliographic information, including the author name, the title, and the location. In a physical catalog, the information about each item sits on a separate card, placed in order in the drawer according to the type of record. Melvil Dewey and others devised a system where books were organized by subject, then alphabetized by author name. Each book was assigned a call number that identified the subject and the location, with a decimal point dividing different sections of the call number. The call number on the card matched a number written on the spine. You can copy that habit with a pencil line inside each curriculum box that repeats the shelf code written in your notebook.

Traditionally, there are several types of catalogs. An author catalog is sorted alphabetically by names of authors, editors, or illustrators. A title catalog is sorted alphabetically by entry, and a subject catalog is sorted by subject. A keyword catalog is a subject catalog sorted alphabetically by keywords. There are also mixed alphabetic forms, such as a mixed author and title catalog or an author, title, and keyword catalog. A systematic catalog, also called a classified catalog, is a subject catalog sorted by a systematic subdivision of subjects. When you keep two small sequences for a parish collection, one by author or maker and one by topic, you give teachers two doors into the same closet without doubling your work.

A dictionary catalog interfiles all entries for author, title, subject, and series in a single alphabetical order. That form was widespread in North American libraries before computer-based catalogs, because a reader could check one sequence instead of guessing which drawer held the answer. The broader development of the library catalog shows why small collections often started with separate lists and later merged them. For a parish shelf with under 300 items, a single alphabetical file on cards or in a spreadsheet often works better than three thin files. You keep VBS 2022, Lent studies, and grief booklets together by alphabet, and you add a see reference when volunteers might look under a different word.

By 700 BCE the Assyrians followed rules set down by the Babylonians, and the seventh century BCE Babylonian Library of Ashurbanipal was led by the librarian Ibnissaru, who prescribed a catalog of clay tablets by subject. Subject catalogs were the rule at that time, and author catalogs were unknown. Frequent use of subject-only catalogs hints that there was a code of practice and a set of rules for subject assignment and for recording details, which created efficiency through consistency. The first library to list titles alphabetically under each subject was the Sorbonne Library in Paris. That old lesson still helps when you choose subject headings that help volunteers find Lent, baptism, youth service, and grief care without memorizing your private shorthand.

A shelf list catalog has entries sorted in the same order as the items are shelved, and it may serve as the primary inventory for the library. A catalog in this sense serves as an inventory or bookkeeping of contents. If an item is not found in the catalog, the user may continue the search at another library. WorldCat, managed by the nonprofit library cooperative OCLC, reported in January 2021 over half a billion catalog records representing three billion holdings. You will not count at that scale, but you can borrow the method described in how a church catalog organizes ministry and walk the shelf with your list once a quarter, checking that every kit listed on paper sits in order on the shelf.

Work with cards demanded standard sizes and furniture. The American Library Association formed a committee that recommended the 2-by-5-inch Harvard College-size cards as used at Harvard and the Boston Athenaeum, and also suggested that a larger card of about 3 by 5 inches would be preferable. By the end of the nineteenth century the bigger card won out, partly because the 3-by-5-inch card was already the postal size used for postcards. In 1860 Ezra Abbot began designing a catalog that was accessible and secure by placing cards on edge between two wooden blocks, and many American libraries adopted the idea after his 1863 report. For almost a century, from 1901 to 1997, the Library of Congress printed and sold copies of its own catalog cards to libraries in the United States, which reduced duplication. OCLC, a major supplier of catalog cards, printed the last one in October 2015. Some libraries with OPAC access still keep card catalogs on site, but strictly as a secondary resource that is seldom updated, sometimes with a sign giving the last year updated, and some removed them to save space for shelving while old cabinets were resold for storage of personal effects in the home.

In 1841 Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi and in 1876 Charles Ammi Cutter undertook pioneering work on early rule sets, and Cutter stated objectives that still shape practice. A reader should be able to find a book when the author, the title, the subject, or the date of publication is known, to show what the library has by a given author, on a given subject, or in a given kind of literature, and to assist in choice as to edition in a bibliographic sense and as to character in a literary or topical sense. A later effort in 1998, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, defines four user tasks as find, identify, select, and obtain. Those four verbs translate directly to church library software habits for volunteers. Record enough to find the kit, confirm you hold the right edition, choose between two similar studies, and get it into a teacher bag on Sunday.

Pull one case of VBS or confirmation items this week, write one line per box in shelf order, add author and topic access for each line, and file the loan date in the same tool.