RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
HEALTHLINK WORLDWIDE
5.4 Cataloguing materials
Cataloguing is a way of describing materials to make them easy to identify and
locate. A catalogue describing all the materials in a resource centre is like a key to
the collection. It helps users to identify useful materials and know where to find
them. Users can look at a catalogue to find out whether the resource centre has a
particular publication, or materials by a particular author, or materials on a
particular subject.
A catalogue contains the following information about each material:
• author
• title and sub-title
• edition
• series
• place of publication
• publisher
• date of publication
• number of pages and format
• illustrations
• subject (keywords)
• accession number
• classification number.
A catalogue can take various forms, such as a card catalogue (card index) or
computer database (see Section 6). The easiest system is a card catalogue. Card
catalogues are a series of cards, about 12.5cm by 7.5cm (5in by 3in) kept in a box.
Card is used because it is stronger than paper, and is easy to write or type on. Card
catalogues are inexpensive, easy to set up, easy to understand, and easy to keep up-
to-date.
A simple card system is the easiest type of catalogue
12 SECTION 5: ORGANISING THE INFORMATION