ACCESSING INFORMATION USING THE

CARD CATALOG
There are many ways on how one can locate or access information. The most traditional
way is by visiting the library. When you go to the library you do not randomly grab a
book. Instead, you look for the book with specific information you need. How will you
locate the book among the shelves?
Card Catalog
■A set of cards in a library
that have information
about books, journals,
etc., written on them and
arranged in alphabetical
order.
Three types of Card Catalog

■Author catalog
■Title catalog
■Subject catalog
Author Catalog
■The entries for the author catalog are
listed by author, editor, compiler,
translator, or the other parties
considered to have responsibility for
the creation or assembly of the work
specified
■ The Author’s name (surname first) is found at
the top of the card catalog.
■ Below are the title of the book, the publishing
information, and the three to five main
subjects highlighted the content of the book.
■ If the book has two or more authors, the first
on the list appears on the card catalog
■ Refer to the call with corresponding code to
locate a book
Title Catalog
■ The title catalog has entries which are listed by title
only.
■ Titles that starts with an article like “A, An, and The”
should be ignored in searching for the title of the
book.
■ The book is found on the top followed by the
author’s name, publishing information, and the
related subjects
Subject catalog

■ A subject catalog lists books or other materials

under the subjects treated and arranged
alphabetically or by classes.
■ It organizes all of the library lists of the titles
by the main subjects.
ONLINE PUBLIC ACCESS CATALOG
(OPAC)
■ An online biography of the library collection that is
available to the public
■ OPACs developed as stand alone online catalogs.
■ With the arrival of the Internet, most libraries have
made their OPAC accessible from a server to users
all over the world.
CLASSIFICATION OF BOOKS IN THE
LIBRARY
■The library contains a collection of
books. Books are classified and
properly organized in the library to
enable the user to find the one that
matches his research.
Two classifications used in the library

■Dewey Decimal classification (DDC)

■Library of the Congress Classification.
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)

■ an internationally applied decimal system of library

classification which uses a three-figure code from
000 to 999 to represent the major branches of
knowledge, and allows finer classification to be
made by the addition of further figures after a
decimal point.
000 General Works, Computer Science, and Information

100 Philosophy and Psychology

200 Religion

300 Social Sciences

400 Language

500 Pure Science

600 Technology

700 Arts and Recreation

800 Literature

900 History and Geography

Library of Congress

■ Bigger libraries, such as university libraries, use the Library of Congress

Classification System (LCC), which classifies books using letters and numbers that
are correlated with the subject, title and author information. The LCC categorizes the
books into 21 Branches of knowledge.
■ Each book in the library’s collection is assigned a unique call number, which is used
to divide and arrange books into same subjects.
■ Books are shelved according to alphabetical and numerical order. The letters at the
beginning of a call number (Class Number) are in alphabetical order.
Call No. Related Subjects Call No. Related Subjects
Range Range
A General works: KD Law of the United Kingdom and Ireland
Encyclopedias
Almanacs KE Law of Canada
Dictionaries KF Law of the United States
B - BJ Philosophy and Psychology
L Education
BL - BX Religion
M Music
C History:
Archeology N Fine Arts
Genealogy
P – PA General Philosophy and Linguistics
Biography
Classical Languages
D Auxiliary Sciences of History (General) Literature
E–F World History PB – PH Modern European Languages
G Geography
Maps
PG Russian Literature
Anthropology PJ – PM Languages and Literature of Asia, Africa, Oceana,
Recreation American Indians and Artificial Languages
H Social Sciences PQ French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Literature
Economics
Sociology PT German, Dutch, and Scandinavian Literature
J Political Science PN - PZ General Literature
K Law English and American
Call No. Related Literature Call No. Related Subjects
Range Range

Literature S Agriculture
Fiction In English
Juvenile Literature

T Technology
Includes:
Engineering
Q Science Auto Mechanics
Includes: Photography
Physical and Biological U Military Science
Sciences
Math
Computers
V Naval Science
R Medicine
Includes:
Health
Human Sexuality Z Library Science
Bibliography Science
Information Resources