Library Catalogues and National Bibliographies

Definition

The ALA Glossary defines a national bibliography as a bibliography of documents published in a particular country and, by extension, documents about the country or written in the language of the country. Harrod's expands on this as a bibliography which lists all the books and other publications published or distributed in significant quantity, in a particular country. Sometimes the term is used in respect to the new publications published within a specific period, and sometimes in respect to all those published within a lengthy period of many years. It is also used to indicate a bibliography of publications about a country (whether written by its nationals or not) and those written in the language of the country as well as those published in it. Similarly, Harrod's defines a library catalogue as Òa list of books, maps, or other items, arranged in some definite order. It records, describes and indexes (usually completely) the resources of a collection, a library or a group of libraries.Ó

Strengths and Weaknesses

The strengths of a national bibliography allow the collection development librarian to quickly survey and see a range of material published in a country on a specific topic area. Because many publications have a short-lived presence in the market place, a national bibliography's records preserve a country's publications of which the collection librarian might otherwise be unaware. Similarly, a library's catalog of holdings allows a collection librarian quick access to a comparative source to be able to make choices more efficiently. If one is gathering a specific collection for either a special, academic or public library and checks a comparative source library for their record of holdings in a specific topic area, one can make a good head start in the collection development process.Weaknesses of both tools involve a lack of an evaluative function. This is greater in a national bibliography where everything published in a nation is contained in the catalog but this may also be true of comprehensive collections where the sheer amount of material may act as a detriment to the selection process.