Modern Catalogue - evolution of catalogue:
The 19th century was an age of great many codes: Catalogue was considered a finding list with the Bodleian concept of literary unit occasionally given expression in compilations. There ensued a spate of debates on the relative merits of author, dictionary, classed and alphabetioclassed catalogues. Author (under surname) and title (for anonymous work) entries constituted the author catalogue. From this author catalogue did develop the dictionary catalogue. It consisted of duplicate entries under authors, titles, subjects and forms. For example, the catalogue of the printed hooks of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1816), supposed as the first true dictionary catalogue, employed duplicate entry approach in one single alphabetical file. Classed catalogue was limited to subject arrangement in systematic order by grouping related subjects together or in proximity. As the purpose of the catalogue became better clarified, the classed catalogue gained importance. It applied the systems of classification schemes devised by Bacon, Horne, Brunet and others. The alphabetico-classed catalogue too became popular during the middle of the century. It was rather an amalgam of dictionary and classed catalogue. The first half of the century was, thus, characterised by a variety of combinations of arrangements and indexes, broadly divisible into two' categories. The first category constituted
lists arranged in subject or classed order, i.e., broad subjects or classes in shelf list order with works subarranged according to accession and chronologically by imprint date, title or author. The second category consisted of alphabetically arranged indexes to classified file which was not a systematic one.
The supplementary alphabetical subject indexes created the need for standard lists of subject headings as aids. Since the practice of picking up subject words from the title lacked uniformity and made syndetic structure difficult, adoption of a better system specially needed for construction of dictionary catalogue was felt. This initiated efforts towards development of standard lists of subject heading. The ALA published such a list entitled, List of Subject Headings for use in the dictionary catalogue in 1895. It was considered as a standard list suitable for all types of libraries and found wide acceptance. The third and final edition was brought in 1911 when the Library of Congress List of Subject Headings (issued in 3 parts between 1909 and 1913) replaced it. Besides these two, three other publications viz., Poole's Index to Periodicals Literature, the ALA Index (an index for collections and composite works), and the Catalogue of the ALA Library (intended to serve as selection tool, cataloguing guide and printed catalogue), all published in 1893 (which still continue under different names and publishers) proved as useful bibliographical tools and influenced cataloguing. However, the idea of specific subject entry was still in the process of making with insistence on the use of standard terms in titles to indicate the subjects. The introduction of printed catalogue card service in 1901 by the Library of Congress was yet another development.