OPERATIONAL RESEARCH ON THE AUTHOR CATALOGUE Available to Purchase

Probably the least popular of all library tools are the catalogues and indexes—and yet they are easily the most important. Any legitimate complaint against the form or condition of these is quite a major challenge to all who seek to help the user. One common complaint by the user is that in many cases they are abominably labelled. An example of thoroughly bad labelling is given in Fig. 1. I have to confess that these were the indications on the drawers of the author catalogue in my own library some few months ago.