Service catalog

A service catalog (or administrative catalog ) is a library catalog that is only accessible to library employees. Its counterpart is the publicly accessible catalog . The separate service and public catalog disappeared from the 1980s with the introduction of electronic catalogs (such as the OPAC ). In libraries in which not all of the holdings are electronically recorded, it is usually the higher quality service catalog that is publicly accessible today.

Originally, library catalogs were only working tools for librarians. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that so-called public catalogs were created that visitors could see. The library-internal catalogs were now called service catalogs. With the introduction of computer-aided cataloging , the separate management of two catalogs was given up. The service catalogs were important at the time of the card catalogs . The service catalog was the catalog that was being worked on on a daily basis; the audience catalog was a second version of the service catalog. Often the catalog cards of the service catalog contained more information, since additions and corrections were only made in the service catalog. In addition, the service catalog was tidier and more complete, as library users incorrectly put away or stole catalog cards.

So-called location catalogs are also only accessible internally and are used as a signature aid and as an instrument for revising the inventory.

literature

• Klaus Gantert, Rupert Hacker : Basic librarianship. 8th, completely revised and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11771-8 , p. 219.
• Klaus Haller : Catalog customer. An introduction to formal and subject indexing. 3rd, expanded edition. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-11364-1 , pp. 67-69, (1st edition 1980).
• Dietmar Strauch , Margarete Rehm: Lexicon book, library, new media. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-11757-2 , p. 139.