CATALOGUE STRATEGY: HELD UP AT THE LIGHTS?

Writing primarily for an American audience, two recent authors take as their starting point the fact that over the last decade the success of automated cataloguing systems have thrown into sharper relief the deficiencies of the card catalogues into which their products have so often been filed. (Just how often is suggested by the fact that OCLC printed over 52 million cards in 1975). These deficiencies, coupled with the approach of 1981, when the Library of Congress is to close its card catalogues and to adopt AACR2, have driven libraries to give serious consideration to alternatives to the card catalogue.