Library Acquisitions and Cataloguing Descriptions

Libraries are in the business of providing the deepest and the widest possible access to their collections. As we add to and develop those collections, we also respond to the need to provide more access and gain more use. We make the collection accessible, in form and in content, through the library’s bibliographic access system: the organized collection and the means of access to the collection acting together as an integrated whole. The catalogue is the single most important cog in this system, recording the collection and providing access to its content. The art of cataloguing lies in creatively bringing together the scientific, analytic approach of the bibliographic standards and the interpretative gloss of the application policies, within the frame of the bibliographic information to hand.