Library catalog

A searchable database of bibliographic records describing materials held by a library or group of libraries. It identifies and organizes resources so they can be found and accessed.

Bibliographic record: A structured description of a publication or other resource, including details such as its title, authors, and publication date. Each catalog entry uses a bibliographic record to represent a resource.
Cataloging: The work of describing resources and assigning access points for their discovery and management. Cataloging creates and maintains the records a library catalog searches.
Library cataloging: The organization and description of library resources to support their identification, discovery, and access. Library catalogs emerged from practices for recording and organizing collections.
Union catalog: A combined catalog showing holdings from multiple libraries or collections. Union catalogs extend discovery beyond the holdings of one institution.
MARC standards: Standards for encoding bibliographic and related information in machine-readable records. MARC formats let catalogs store and exchange structured bibliographic records.
Indexing: The process of organizing information so that relevant items can be retrieved through search or browsing. Indexes connect searchable terms to matching catalog records.
Cutter's Rules: Charles Ammi Cutter's nineteenth-century principles for arranging and providing access to library catalogs. Cutter's principles shaped catalog organization and the purposes of catalog access.
Interlibrary loan: A service through which one library obtains materials for a user from another library. Catalog holdings can identify lending libraries when an item is unavailable locally.
International Standard Book Number: A unique numeric identifier assigned to a specific edition of a book. An ISBN helps distinguish book editions in catalog records.
Keyword searching: A search method that finds records containing specified words in selected fields or across a database. Keyword searching retrieves catalog records from their descriptive text.

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