College and Research Libraries


By F E R N A N D O P E f t A L O S A 

The Card Catalog: A Failure in 
Communication 

IF W E CONSIDER the library to be the 
heart of a university or college, or as 

the community's information center, 
then the card catalog might be considered 
the heart of the library, or better still, its 
brain. It is a massive brain, constructed 
out of tens of thousands of brain efforts 
on the part of several generations of cata-
logers. Yet the card catalog is an inert 
thing until acted upon by the brain of 
the user. If an incredible amount of 
mental effort goes into the making of the 
catalog, an even more incredible amount 
of mental effort must be expended by the 
library patron in its decipherment and 
use. 

It is a curious thing that the librarians 
engaged in producing this all-important 
library tool have, in most instances, little 
contact with the people for w h o m it is 
supposedly designed. It seems that in this 
situation students of the communication 
process would find much of a disturbing 
nature. T h e library is rightly considered 
a medium not of mass communication, 
but of individualized communication. In 
the latter, the communication process is 
characterized by the message's sender and 
receiver standing in each other's physical 
presence. As the message is being sent, 
there is "feedback" from the receiver to 
the sender, who then varies his message 
according to results being obtained. A 
good example of this face-to-face com-
munication is a private conversation. 

How, then, do these concepts of the 

Mr. Penalosa is instructor, School of 
Library Science, University of Southern 
California. 

communication process apply to the 
functions of the card catalog? T h e cata-
loger or catalog department is the sender 
of a very vital message: how to find ma-
terials in the library. T h e catalog users 
are the receivers, the audience, that strug-
gles at comprehending the message. 
Sometimes the message is not understood, 
and the audience goes away unsatisfied; 
or the message may be misunderstood 
and the audience is deceived or frus-
trated; or the message may be overlooked 
or ignored, and the audience is cheated. 
But only in the rarest of instances is 
there any feedback to the communicator. 
Hence the message continues to be 
phrased in the same terms, and is de-
signed often for an audience that exists 
only in the cataloger's imagination. 

What, then, is the audience for the li-
brary's card catalog? It consists of two 
very different groups: the library staff, a 
relatively homogeneous group; and the 
library patrons, an extremely heteroge-
neous group. Even the most casual ob-
server will recognize that the ways in 
which the two groups cope with and 
make use of the card catalog will diverge 
greatly. 

Let us consider first the library pa-
trons. T h e difficulties experienced by lay-
men in using subject headings, cross ref-
erences, corporate entries, etc. are well 
known and need not be described here. 
However, the nature of the bibliographic 
information on the card itself is perhaps 
the most confusing of all to the general 
catalog user. Certain problems can be il-
lustrated by some points brought out in 
a study of catalog use made at the Den-
ver Public Library and the University of 

NOV EMBER, 1956 483 



Denver Library.1 T h e study involved in-
terviewing one hundred students at each 
of the two libraries over a period of sev-
eral months. 

T h e part of the catalog most used by 
students was the part including the head-
ing (subject or added entry), author and 
title. T h e only bibliographic items used 
extensively on the cards were the title, 
author, date of publication and Library 
of Congress tracings for subject headings. 
Seventy-four per cent of all students used 
the title, 23.5 per cent the author, 22 per 
cent the date of publication and 11 per 
cent the Library of Congress subject trac-
ings. All other items were used by 5 per 
cent or less of the students. Sixty-nine 
per cent of the students at the University 
of Denver Library catalog and 76 per 
cent of those at the Denver Public Li-
brary catalog used only one or two items 
each. 

In addition to the heading each inter-
viewee was f o u n d to use an average of 
only 1.6 bibliographic items as aids in se-
lecting a particular book. It was note-
worthy, when one considers that tracings 
are thought of as being primarily for the 
use of the cataloger, that 11 per cent of 
all students interviewed used L C subject 
tracings to find out what the book was 
about and that at least one student com-
plained of the absence of subject tracings 
on typewritten cards. 

T h e reason for such limited use of the 
catalog is probably that the students, in-
tent on a specific title or subject, usually 
read only the heading and title, which was 
then the only information that they 
needed to help them decide on the book. 
T h e notion that the title or subtitle was 
a description or annotation of the book 
was quite prevalent, especially when the 
subtitle was long. These were undoubted-
ly cases of wishful thinking. Students also 
had difficulty in finding wanted informa-
tion on catalog cards. T h u s many stu-

1 Fernando Penalosa, " A n Investigation of the Man-
ner in Which Students of the University of Denver 
Use the Card Catalog" ( M . A . Thesis, University of 
Denver, 1949). 

dents complained of information lacking 
o n the card, only to have the writer show 
them such information on the card. 

W h e n the students were asked if there 
was any additional information about the 
particular book in question that did not 
appear on the catalog card that they 
would like to have had in that particular 
instance, 18 per cent of all those inter-
viewed replied that they wished more in-
formation about the contents of the 
book. Over 13 per cent stated specifically 
that they would have wanted an annota-
tion for the book in question printed or 
typed on the card, although they did not 
necessarily use the word "annotation." 

T h e main conclusion of the study, 
then, insofar as the card itself is con-
cerned, would be that from the viewpoint 
of patrons, catalog cards contain entirely 
too much bibliographic information and 
not enough information about the con-
tents of books. If this is true for university 
students, it must be even more so for the 
general public, most of w h o m have not 
enjoyed the advantages of an advanced 
education. Other studies of catalog use 
which have been made have come to sub-
stantially the same conclusions.2 

N o w what about the other audience 
for the catalog, the library staff? Since 
making the above-mentioned study, the 
writer has had occasion to use the catalog 
intensively in acquisitions work, catalog-
ing, and in work with the public. It is 
the writer's firm conviction that less bib-
liographic information on catalog cards 
would greatly hamper the library staff in 
its work. Particularly is this true in ac-
quisitions work involving positive identi-
fication of titles suggested for purchase 
or for acceptance as gifts. It further goes 
without saying that catalog librarians 
would feel themselves lost without suffi-
cient bibliographic information on cards 
for books already in the library. Thus, 

2 A good summary of studies of catalog use is Carlyle 
J. Frarey, "Studies of Use of the Subject Catalog; 
Summary and Evaluation," in M. F. Tauber, ed., The 
Subject Analysis of Library Materials (New York: 
School of Library Service, Columbia University, 1953), 
p. 147-166. 

484 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



the suspicion aroused in the study above, 
namely, that catalog cards are made pri-
marily for bibliographers and librarians, 
is borne out by the fact that in most cases 
the cards are admirably suited for their 
purposes! 

Returning once more to the jargon of 
communication we might say that cata-
logers through the cards they produce 
are communicating effectively to an audi-
ence of bibliographers, bibliophiles and 
librarians. T h e y are trying to reach two 
very different audiences with the same 
channel, hence fail where one audience 
is concerned. T h e failure has arisen be-
cause where two different audiences are 
concerned, two different types of chan-
nels are called for. T h e commercial agen-
cies of communication grasped this ele-
mentary truth long ago, and produce dif-
ferent types of radio and television pro-
grams, magazines, etc. to reach different 
audiences. In plain language, then, what 
is required is txuo kinds of cataloging. 

What precisely would be involved? 
First, a public card catalog devoid of su-
perfluous bibliographic information but 
containing on each card a short annota-
tion indicating the scope of the work and 
the reader for whom it is designed. In 
many cases the annotation need not con-
sist of more than a sentence of two. Sec-
ond, an official author catalog, with very 
complete bibliographic data, convenient-
ly located for staff use. A library that 
might desire to change over to a dual sys-
tem should proceed slowly and with cau-
tion. Thus first on the agenda would be 
a survey or a series of surveys to deter-
mine the extent to which the patrons of 

that particular library use the biblio-
graphic information on catalog cards. On 
this basis the library could decide what 
items would appear on public cards un-
der the new system . 

While individual libraries naturally 
will devise the most suitable methods for 
converting to the dual system, the prime 
consideration is to proceed with caution, 
and as local conditions demand or per-
mit. By all means, use printed cards 
where possible, L C cards in the official 
catalog and Wilson cards in the public 
catalog. T h e H. W . Wilson Company has 
pioneered in progressive cataloging pro-
cedures and we librarians have much to 
learn from the principles embodied in 
its cards. Perhaps the Wilson Company 
could even be induced to expand its cov-
erage if there were enough demand for 
this type of card from libraries. 

Essential to the functioning of a dual 
cataloging system would be a form of co-
operation much closer than that which 
generally prevails between the technical 
and the public services. Bibliographic in-
formation will be compiled by catalogers, 
but the annotations for the public cata-
log will be composed by pubilc service 
people, such as readers advisers or refer-
ence librarians, who work with the pub-
lic and understand their guidance needs. 
Such an arrangement, in fact, would ne-
cessitate considerable reorganization of 
staff and routines, and would, this writer 
fervently hopes, contribute toward break-
ing down the artificial barriers that exist 
between those engaged in processing ma-
terials and those engaged in serving the 
public directly. 

NOV EMBER, 1956 485