Ah, posting late in the day and working off of a sugar buzz from the cake at lunch (yummy, by the way!) provides the opportunity for either a bizarre post or a really short one due to lack of concentration........so here goes........
From a previous blog about how search is manifested on various library websites comes the next question of using the word "catalog" on the home page. I try to tear myself away from library jargon but it feels so embedded in my soul (you just can't rub away more than 20 years of experience!) that it almost takes looking at the website from a stranger's point of view. When we staff look to our significant others as guinea pigs, it's probably time for marriage therapy but this isn't Dr Phil's blog........ Catalog can mean those nice big glossy things that come in the mail and you flip through in order to spend money. Does the public relate to our using the word 'catalog?' Does your spouse even know? (we assume they care)
John Kupersmith, whom i've probably quoted before, says that "library catalog" is not an easily understood term and that "find books" is better for understanding....therefore one of the things under the microscope for scrutiny.
If y'all could take off your librarian cape (sorry the Underdog movie is coming out) what would you call this?
Disclaimer: tomorrow's post will return to something more rational, unless there's leftover cake around..........
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4 comments:
"find a book" will this phrase be undesrtaood by all patrons as find our resources? Or will mislead to search for books only?
Olga C
I think that is a good point Olga. Hmmm...catalog to me has always meant what it is. Before online catalog, it was the card catalog. It's hard too for me to see it from an outside perspective. I would assume that is what I would be searching if I am at all familiar with a library, no matter what it is called, catalog or search books.
To me, the library catalog is exactly the same thing as a catalog from a store. When I'm figuring out what I want to buy from JC Penny, I can look in the catalog - when I'm figuring out what I want to borrow from the library, I look in the catalog. Both are ways to determine what the organization has that I might want. I really do not see the two uses as very different.
The definition of catalog from Merriam-Webster online is: 1 : LIST, REGISTER
2 a : a complete enumeration of items arranged systematically with descriptive details b : a pamphlet or book that contains such a list c : material in such a list
I think that describes exactly what we do in a library catalog.
just a suggestion, maybe the word came from 'cattle log'. the books that kept track of all stock on a farm. They are also used in markets and slaughter houses
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