The Dictionary Catalog: a summary of critical discussions

Abstract

After looking back to the historical development of the library catalog in Europe, U. S. and Japan, the writer review many discussions on the dictionary catalog, compare with the classified catalog, or with the divided catalog. Dictionary catalog has much excellent feature than the other catalog systems, but is not almighty.
In conclusion, the writer recommend that the library should have both fils, dictionary and classified, including selective entries as following.
1. Subject entries on the scientific topics may be limited for the publications in recent 1O years.
2. Subject entries about materials by which have written foreign languages or for only specialist use and about juvenile books, may be ommitted.
3. Some subject entries including many cards, i.e. JAPAN-HISTORY, ECONOMICS, may be eliminated and refer to the classified file.
4. Entries on biography, fiction, etc. may be omitted from the classified file, and refer to the dictionary catalog.
5. Subject entries on the materials, which are self-cataloged, or are cataloged in special bibliographies, may be omitted, and refer to the bibliographies, information files, etc.
6. See also reference may be omitted.