Library catalogue card catalogue

The characteristics of the literature are recorded on the card (the international standard specification of the catalogue card is 75cm× 12.5cm), and then sorted into a catalogue according to certain rules. The advantages of card catalogue are: ① it can be compiled, sorted and used at any time, and it has the nature of assembly line; ② It can be flexibly organized according to readers' needs and updated in time, and the whole catalogue will not be affected. Its main disadvantages are: ① huge volume and large space occupation; ② A card item can only provide one retrieval method; ③ It cannot be used by readers far away from the library.

The history of card catalogue can be traced back to more than one hundred years ago. 186 1 year, the card catalogue of Harvard University Library was officially opened to readers. At the end of 19, many western libraries established card-type catalogs as a supplement to book-type catalogs. By the beginning of the 20th century, the card catalogue has become the main catalogue form of the library. After 1980s, in some libraries with high degree of automation and many machine-readable catalogs, card catalogs have been gradually replaced by machine-readable catalogs, computer-output microform catalogs and book catalogs. For example, since 1982, the Library of Congress has "frozen" the card catalogue (that is, new books are no longer made into cards and placed in the card catalogue) and replaced by other forms of catalogues.