Thursday, January 10, 2008

What does a Catalog do?


If you're like my mother you get catalogs in the mail every day. Some entice you to buy winter clothes and sports equipment. (Don't they know my mother lives in Florida so doesn't need winter clothes and is too old to participate in any sports except bridge and bingo---I don't think those really count as sports). Other catalogs peddle fruit and other food which my Mom can send to friends and family as Christmas and birthday gifts.


So the right catalog can help you find things you really want. If you want to find things in the library a catalog is an essential tool. In the dark ages (when I went to college) Library Catalog were housed in a huge filing cabinet with small drawers and sets of cards telling about the books you could find in the libraryand how to find them--- the "call #" is the book's address. Actually Libraries usually had three sets of card catalogs so you can look up the books by title, subject or author. Now days library catalogs are online so you can find what books, magazine, DVDs and CDs the library owns. You can even find Library resources that only exist in cyberspace such as e-books and e-journals. How cool is that!