Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evolution Of Western Library Catalogs: The Rising Expectations Of Users, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

This paper traces the historical development of library catalogs from primitive catalogs in ancient times to current next generational catalogs, which are summarized into three stages: the agricultural catalog stage, the industrial catalog stage and the information catalog stage. In particular, this paper focuses on the discussion of the rise of users’ expectations on library catalogs at different stages and gives emphasis to what impact they have created accordingly.