The Evolution of Catalog Tools

While completing our class assignment on MARC records, I was able to update my understanding of the current system of organizing the bibliographic records of library resources. In addition, however, this assignment caused me to reflect upon the past processes, and as well, look towards the future and consider how technological changes will affect the way we organize information for easy access and retrieval.

The predecessor of MARC records was the card catalogue system. It wasn’t so long ago that the card catalogue provided library users with a satisfactory means to accessing resources. It certainly served our needs at the time, helping users navigate their way through the libraries resources, and in doing so, promoted the traditional values of “stability, dependability, reliability and quality” (Thomas, 2000, p. 4).

However, advances in technology created a demand for change in the standards for the organization of information. “In the 1960’s, the first MARC format was designed at the Library of Congress...to enable bibliographic records of books to be entered into properly programmed computers and, once encoded and entered into a database, to be transmitted electronically to another computer programmed to receive them” (Intner and Weihs, 2007, p. 209). Clearly, understanding MARC records, how they are presented and utilized, is important in understanding how searches are done in the online catalog. It is also important to understand how the online catalog searches differ from internet searches, so that we can facilitate the searches of our students, who may not comprehend the difference between these tools.

As technology changes at an extremely rapid pace, so too does the amount of information that becomes available. How, then, do we organize information in the future, complex in amount and diversity of form? For students to be information literate they must be able to function successfully within this new environment. There is, therefore, a growing need for libraries to facilitate access to information and to assist students in locating resources that are reliable. We are dawning on a new era, with increasing challenge and unprecedented volume of information. It is therefore likely that we will continue to encounter an evolution in the standards of the organization of information.

Bibliography

Intner, Sheila and Weihs, Jean (2007). Standard Cataloging for school and public libraries. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Thomas, Sarah E. (2000). The Catalog as Portal to the Internet. Retrieved July 1, 2009 from http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/569/01/thomas_paper.html.