College and Research Libraries


By MARGARET C. BROWN 

The Graduate Student's Use 
of the Subject Catalog' 

T HE CRITICISM is frequently heard that catalogers tend to think of cataloging as 
an end in itself, considering the description 
of the library's materials rather than the u'se 
which will ultimately be made of that des-
cnptwn. In other words, the cataloger's 
chief concern has been with the book, not 
the reader. 

This criticism is, to some extent, justified. 
'However, the difficulty lies, not so much 
in the failure to consider the use which is to 
be made of the catalog or in a lack of ap-
preciation of the significance of this facf<l:r of 
use by those who make the catalog, but 
rather in the insufficiency of knowledge re-
garding the reader and his approach to the 
catalog. If, for example, standardization 
in subject cataloging has gone too far, as 
has been suggested, the catalog can only be 
modified to suit the individual library's 
needs when knowledge of those needs is 
made specific and objective. It is not pos-
sible to fashion catalogs to meet the needs 
of the library's patrons unless more is known 
about the nature of these needs. 

It was with this general problem in mind 
that the present study was undertaken. 
Specifically, the object of this investigation 
was to learn something about the use made 
of the subject catalog by a group of gradu-
ate students in a large university. These 
students were interviewed while they 
worked at the subject catalog in the prepa-
ration of their term papers. 

1 B ased on a master's thesis fr~ared at the Graduate 
Library School, University o Chicago, 1946. 

JULY~ 1947 

Since the students in the social sciences 
might reasonably be expected to make 
greater use of the subject catalog than those 
in the humanities or sciences, two classes in 
sociology were selected for study. With 
few exceptions, the students in these classes 
were studying for advanced degrees, either 
M.A. or Ph.D. . 

The total enrolment of these two classes 
was about I6o. However, only 33, or 
slightly more than 20 per cent, could be per-
suaded to take par·t in this investigation. 
Many :factors probably contributed to the 
meager response elicited from the students. 
Undoubtedly, the most important was a 
general lack of interest on the part of the 
students. In a busy academic schedule any 
attempt to impose further duties meets with 
considerable resistance. In a program al-
ready burdened with requirements a "sug-
gested activity," like "suggested reading," 
tends to . be ignored. 

There' are other factors present in the 
situat~on, however, which may be of some 
significance when considering the study as 
a whole. The students understood that the 
investigator was interested in knowing how 
the catalog helped or failed to help them 
when they were collecting material for their 
term papers. If they relied exclusively on 
sources other than the catalog for this ma-
terial, they naturally would not see any 
occasion for reporting their methodology. 
Several students acknoweledged this during 
their interviews. 

Similarly, a lack of familiarity with the 

203 

I 



catalog or an inability to use it with any 
success may have influenced some students 
against participation in the study through 
unwillingness to display their ineptitude. 
Barring those few of a genuinely uncoopera-
tive nature, it might not be unfair to assume 
that, of the So per cent who did not par-
ticipate in the investigation, a large number 
made no great use of the subject catalog 
or else felt unable to use it intelligently, 
circumstances which possibly reflect aspects 
of the same problem rather than two dif-
ferent problems. 

The interviews were all conducted at 
the catalog and varied from ten minutes to 
a half hour in length. The student stated 
briefly the general topic of his paper and ex-
plained in some detail his procedure in 
searching for material prior to consulting 
the card catalog. If he had used the catalog 
before coming for the interview, he re-
viewed each step of his search, indicating at 
the same time his success or failure in each 
case. Usually, however, the student and in-
vestigator went to the catalog together and 
the investigator had an opportunity to ob-
serve firsthand the student's use of the cata-
log. 

Those aspects of the student's use of the 
subject catalog which were of particular in-
terest in this investigation should · be men-
tioned here. First, a study was made of the 
terms in which the student expected a 
given idea to be expressed as a subject in the 
catalog. Equally signif.icant is the order in 
which he looked for these terms. The 
trial-and-error method, which is used by 
those with enough patience to pursue this 
policy, is more revealing when the "trials" 
can be studied in sequence. Does the stu-
dent go first to the general term or does he 
begin with a highly specific concept? What 
is the source of the term he selects? Does 

·he think, as a librarian does, of a "specific 
entry"? How does he interpret subdivisions 

of a subject and how does he use them ? 
The student's understanding of the signifi-
cance of a subject entry as opposed to a 
title or author entry was another question 
posed by the investigator. Answers to all 
these questions were found in no one case, 
but as each student was interviewed it was 
the answers to these questions which were 
so\_ght. 

Besides noting the subjects the student 
used and the pertinence of these subjects to 
his topic, an attempt was made to learn 
what factors contributed to the student's se-
lection of titles under a given subject. If 
the student consults a subject like "Sociol-
ogy" in the catalog and finds two drawers of 
cards when he requires only a few books, 
there is evident need for selection, since it is 
obviously impossible for him to examine the 
actual books represented by several thou-
sands of cards. If the student is not so 
discouraged by the wealth of material un-
der this subject that he gives up the search 
altogether, he will be obliged to make a 
choice of titles. The determining factors 
in this choice are of importance to those 
who are making and arranging the catalog 
he is to use. 

A further point of interest concerned the 
use of the subject catalog as a supplement 

. to other approaches which the student might 
have made to the material, since the subject 
catalog is only one means of finding infor-
mation on a given subject. What other 
sources were consulted and which proved 
most useful ? The answer to this question 
has implications for all librarians but par-
ticularly for those who make the subject 
catalog. 

Reports of Individual Students 

Two repor.ts, selected from the thirty-
three cases studied, are included here as ex-
amples of the type of information obtained 
from the interviews with the students. 

204 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



Case 4. "Rural recreation" was the topic 
chosen for this student's term paper. She 
was unfamiliar with any authors in the field 
and sought material of a general nature. 
She first looked up the subject "Recreation," 
considering only those books with imprint 
date later than 1935. The wording of the 
title, together with the date, determined 
whether or not she would examine the book. 

Next the student went in search of any 
subject which began with the word "rural." 
Here several titles relative to the subject 
were found. The student was highly 
pleased with this development, but was 
quite unaware that these were title entries. 
She considered them subjects like "Recrea-
tion" and consequently was disappointed 
that the library had only one book on -"rural 
and small community recreation" and only 
two books on "rural community organiza-
tion." 

In considering the entries beginning 
with the word "rural," the student found 
"Rural Sociology" which, in turn, directed 
her to "Sociology, Rural." This subject 
suggested several books which were helpful. 

The subjects "Village" and "Town" 
w~re next searched for in the catalog. The 
plural of the first term was found and 
material located which was pertinent to the 
topic in hand. A cross reference from 
"Town" led her to "Cities and Towns," a 
subject which proved too broad in' scope to 
be useful. 

This student read only English. 
Case 32. The topic for the student's term 

paper was described as "race relations a~d 
housing." "Housing" was the first subject 
explored, and here the number of cards so 
discouraged the student that the subject re-
ceived only a superficial examination. He 
decided that some other subject-perhaps 
he meant a more limited subject-would 
supply him with what he wanted. It might 
be mentioned that from the moment he 

JULY~ 1947 

approached the catalog he had a definitely 
defeatist attitude: "I never have found any-
thing in the catalog; it's unlikely I will 
today." 

He next looked for the subject "Race 
Relations" and found a cross reference un-
der "Race Question" to "Race Problems." 
The reference suggested also the subdivi-
sions "Nationality" and "Race Question" 
under names of countries, e. g., "U.S.-
Race Qu'estion." The student read only the 
"see" reference, however, and ignored the 
"see also" reference. This was unfortunate 
because books which appeared to treat of 
the problem of segregation were fo~nd by 
the investigator under "U .S.-Race Ques-
tion," while the general subject "Race 
Problems" yielded less that was helpful. 

"Negro," the subject he next tried, led 
him to "Negroes," and he selected a title 
from those listed under "Negroes-Civil 
Rights." 

As a last resort, he turned to the subject 
"Prejudice" where he found a cross ref-
erence to "Antipathies and Prejudices." The 
books suggested there did not deal directly 
with his problem. 

The student said he customarily sought 
the professor's advice regarding his selection 
of books on a given subject and preferred, 
when possible, to work through bibliogra-
phies rather than the subject catalog. 

Summary of Findings 

In reviewing the use which thirty-three 
graduate students made of the subject cata-
log, the most obvious fact . to be noted is 
that the subJect catalog, for these students, 
was an unsatisfactory and inefficient in-
strument. In almost every case the student 
preferred to consult the professor's sug-
gested reading list or to select titles from 
those listed in bibliographies which accom-
panied journal articles and chapters of 
books. Some students went directly to the 

205 



professor for recommendations; others 
found the various indexes to periodicals 
more helpful than the subject catalog. But 
in every case the subject catalog was a 
"supplementary tool." Even those students 
who were accustomed to using the catalog 
and said they experienced little difficulty 
finding material, seldom searched the sub-
ject catalog before consulting reading lists 
and bibliographies. 

These graduate students wen~ not writing 
term papers for the first time. Nor were 
they meeting the subject catalog for the 
first time. Their use of the subject catalog 
was conditioned, to some extent, by the 
success or failure which they had expe-
rienced in the past when they had consulted 
the catalog and, in some cases, that past 
experience had not been such as to encour-
age them to rely on the catalog for help in 
finding material on a given subject. 

The important question to consider is: 
Why was it that the students found the 
subject catalog unsatisfactory for their pur-
poses? Was the .difficulty inherent in the 
design of the catalog itself or did the limita-
tions lie with the student and his methods 
of using the catalog? A categorical answer 
cannot be admitted. Both those who made 
the catalog and those who used it were re-
sponsible in part for the difficulties which 
the students experienced. 

The inadequacies of the catalog itself, 
with reference to the particular cases 
studied, are fairly obvious. It has been 
charged that the subject catalog is of little 
use to the specialist except on those occa-
sions when he is not specializing. For ex-
ample, the biologist, when making a study 
of the utilization of salt in the human body, 
would not use the subject catalog as an aid 
-in his search for secondary material. If 
this same biologist wan ted a book on the 
Civil War in Spain he might very conceiv-
ably rely on the subject catalog to locate 

such a volume. These thirty-three gradu-
ate students whose methods of research 
were studied were likewise specialists work-
ing in their own field. With one or two 
exceptions, they were all concentrating in 
the division of the social sciences and most 
of them expected to study for degrees in 
the department of sociology. Some of therri 
were already launched on Ph.D. theses. 
The standard works in sociology were fa-
miliar to them, and the bibliographies and 
references in these volumes often served as a 
point ,of departure ' for a study of their in-
dividual topics. The reading list for this 
course, together with those distributed in 
previous courses taken in the department, 
provided selected bibliographies from which 
the student could choose titles relevant to · 
his topic. 

Periodical Indexes More Popular 

This topic, it should be remembered, was 
for a term paper, not an exhaustive treatise. 
It is not usually necessary, in preparing a 
term paper, to examine all the material on 
the subject. This accounts for the fact that 
a good many of the students were content 
with a book, requiring neither all the bopks 
nor even all the best books. The topic of 
a term paper should be one that can be dis-
cussed to some purpose in three or four 
thousand words. Consequently, some of the 
topics chosen by the students were more 
likely to be the subjects of articles in jour-
nals or chapters in books. The subjects in 
the catalog are, on the whole, subjects of 
books. The material which they sought 
might be expected to be brought out by a 
subject entry for an analytic, less frequently 
by a subject entry for a book. In view of 
this fact, it is not surprising that the periodi-
cal indexes proved so popular. 

Still another characteristic of the topics 
which the students selected to discuss made 
it more likely that the information would 

206 COLLEGE- AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



be found in journals. Some of the students 
were exploring in areas where little had 
been written. In some instances, they ex-
pected to incorporate this paper into a larger 
master's or doctoral thesis. They were 
working on the fringe of a body of knowl-
edge, and the subject 'had not developed far 
enough to be included in very many books, 
although it might be of sufficient interest to 
be the topic of a journal article. 

Similarly, the topical character of a sub-
ject like race relations and housing makes it 
unlikely that this subject would be found 
widely discussed in books, although the 
problems of segregation and restrictive cove-
nants are being widely discussed today. 

It is apparent that the nature of the cata-
log and the kind of material it indexes is, 
to some extent, responsible for the dissatis-
faction which the students experienced. 
When the student wanted a selected list of 
the best books on a subject, the catalog was 
unselective. All titles in the catalog re-
ceived the same subject treatment, and no 
attempt was made to evaluate individual 
books. On the other hand, when the stu-
dent wished an unselected list, as he did 
when he asked for all the material in print 

. on a given subject, the catalog presented 
him with a selected list, selected in the 
sense that only those volumes in the library 
were given subject headings in the catalog. 

Aside from these limitations inherent in 
the catalog itself, the students experienced 
difficulties directly traceable to their own in-
experience and lack of skill in using the 
catalog. · 

An example of a difficulty of this kind can 
be seen in the students' inability to distin-
guish between a title entry and a subject 
entry. Perhaps it would be more nearly 
correct to speak of their ignorance regard-
ing the whole concept of entry. It was ob-
vious in more than a few cases that the 
student was unaware that a book was en-

JULY, 1947 

I 

I 

~ered in the catalog under the author, sub-
ject, title, etc. It did not occur to him that 
those entries in Cf!.pital letters or in red ink 
were a different kind of entry from those in 
small letters. The title entry, when used 
intelligently, can be very helpful as a substi-
tute for a subject heading or as a cross ref-
erence, through the Library of Col)gress 
suggestions for subject headings, to other 
material on the same subject. But when the 
title entry is not interpreted for what it is, 
the student may be misled into believing 
that he has found all the material the li-
brary has on the subject. For example, both 
the student who looked up "rural recrea-
tion" and the student who found four title 
entries beginning with the words "race re-
lations" thought th~t they had exhausted the 
library's resources in these areas. 

Specific Entry Concept 

An idea clearly as foreign to the student 
mind as that of title entry is the concept 
which the librarian refers to as "specific 
entry." In many instances the student was 
unconsciously applying this idea up to a 
certain point. He consulted a specific entry 
in his initi~l search for material. How-
ever, if he failed to find as many titles as 
he had hoped or if those he did find were 
unsatisfactory for some reason or other, he 
wo~ld examine broader subjects but still 
with the expectation of finding the specific 
information he was seeking. In one in-
stance, the student, after consulting "Mov- 1 
ing Pictures-1\'loral and Religious As-
pects," turned for additional information on 
the same topic to the subjects "Pathology, 
Social Disorganization" and "Social Psy-
chology." The students expected to find ma-
terial on a limited subject under both the 
specific and broad heading. 

The student was further hampered in his 
use of the catalog because he failed to notice 
the vanous devices which might have 

207 



r 

served to refer him from the subject he was 
consulting to ther allied subjects. "See" 
references he understood; "see also'' ref-
erences he was less likely to utilize to their 
fullest extent. In only one case had the 
student observed that the Library of Con-
gress suggestions for subject headings could 
lead him to other subjects closely related 
to the one he was considering. Except for 
the simple cross references, the suggestions 
which the catalog itself could have furnished 
went unnoticed in the majority of cases. 
The student simply consulted the subjects 
in succession as they occurred to him. 

In considering what term or terms they 
would look for in the catalog, some of the 
students were handicapped by being rela-
tively unfamiliar with the subject. Conse-
qu,ently, it was difficult for them to give a 
name to the idea which they wished to dis-
cuss. One student said that when the sub-
ject in which he was interested was a very 
specific one, he did not know what term to 
consult in the catalog; when the subject 
was a general one, he was confused by the 
number of titles listed under it. 

Impatience characterized many of the 
students' searches through the subject cata-
log. If the first trial did not lead them to 
what they wanted, they were tempted to 
give up the search. If they found a great 
many titles listed under a subject, they were 
almost as discouraged as when they found 
none. The search through a wealth of ma-
terial under a broad subject could have 
been less burdensome had the students con-
sidered the various subdivisions under one 
general subject as representing concepts 
which were, o~ the whole, mutually ex-
clusive. Generally, however, the students 
examined each title under the broad head-
ing, considering the subdivisions only as 
guides to the aspect of the subject which 
wa~ treated in a given book. In other 
words, the students first looked at the title 

and then used the subject subdivision as a 
guide. to content or treatment rather than 
consulting the various headings and then se-
lecting the titles under the most appropn-
ate subdivisions of the subject. 

Basis for: Selection of Titles 

As has been mentioned earlier, an at-
tempt was made not only to learn how the 
students approached the subjects they did 
but also on what basis they made their se-
lection of titles under a given subject. The 
language in which a book was written ap-
peared to be the chief consideration when a 
student was choosing a few titles among 
the many suggested under a subject. The 
field of sociology leans heavily on source ma-
terials available only in German, but these 
embryo sociologists, with few exceptions, did 
not read German. Sometimes as many as 
50 per cent of the titles listed under a sub-
ject which a student examined in the cata-
log represented books in a language other 
than English. Rarely did a student have a 
knowledge of a foreign language which 
permitted him to consult books written in 
that language, even though the information 
was unavailable in English. Strangely 
enough, this language factor operated al-
most unconsciously sometimes, the student 
seemingly being unaware that many of his 
most valuable sources were unavailable to 
him because he was compelled to eliminate 
from his consideration any material not in 
English. Other students, particularly 
those who were studying the works of one 
man, regretted the inadequacies of the trans-
lations available. 

Among the English titles the student gen-
erally selected those which, to judge by the 
phraseology of the title itself, seemed to 
treat that aspect of the subject which was of 
particular interest to him. Besides the 
statement of content revealed in the title, 

(Continued on page 217) 

208 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



least to discount the importance of a li-
brarian's being a subject matter specialist; 
it simply tries to draw attention to the fact 
that few librarians are subject specialists 
and even if they are that does not indicate a 
knowledge on their part of the biblio-
graphic sources and literature of their fields. 
Then it s~ems reasonable, perfectly possible, 
and earnestly desirable for such a staff 
group-study plan to be developed in college 
and university libraries. 

Librarians should cease proclaiming that 
library schools are to blame for this lack of 
special subject knowledge on the part of the 
school graduates. The schools have to ad-
mit the best of the applicants who seek 
entrance. If the science, social science, and 
art majo~s are not attracted to librarian-

ship, who is to blame? The schools cannot 
supply training in these subjects, even if 
their faculties were equipped to do so. The 
only alternative, as Dean Reece suggests, 
is to get this knowledge either in college or 
after the library course. College and uni-
versity librarians have a double responsibil-
ity in the matter: (I) to recruit more 
students with a greater variety of subject 
majors, ( 2) to develop sound in-service 

· group-study programs to fill in this gap. 
The sooner, then, that librarians stop mak-
ing the library schools their scapegoat and 
get down to business in fulfilling their own 
responsibilities, the mo~e quickly will library 
staffs improve their educational foundation 
to meet the scholarly demands of college and 
university educational goals. 

The Graduate Student's Use of the Subject Catalog 
(Continued from page 208) 

the student relied on the contents notes and 
any other bibliographical notes which fur-
nished a clue to contents. The Library of 
Congress suggestions for subject headings 
were taken for contents notes by many of 
the students and were customarily consid-
ered in making selections of titles. 

While the subject content of a book was 
the most important single consideration 
when the student was deciding which of the 
English titles he would select, those stu-
dents who were familiar with their subjects 
or who had consulted bibliographies before 
coming to the catalog frequently chose cer-
tain titles because they recognized the au-
thor's name. 

On the other hand, there were few who 
indicated that the date of the book in-
fluenced their choice. Some of those who 
did state a preference for recent books were 
studying subjects where the only material 
available had been published recently. 

JULY~ 1947 

In summary, it can be said that the na-
ture of the topic which the student was 
studying and the design of the catalog itself 
contributed to the dissatisfaction he ex-
perienced in using the subject catalog. 

... The topical character of the subjects plus 
the fact that they frequently dealt ~ith a 
limited area of a relatively undeveloped 
field made the periodical indexes a more 
fruitful source of references than the sub-
ject catalog. 

Furthermore, the students, in trying to 
locate material through the subject catalog, 
were handicapped because they did not 
know precisely what it was the catalog was 
equipped to do nor the kind of material 
which could reasonably be expected to be 
listed in the subject catalog. Moreover, 
lacking experience and skill in the use of the 
catalog, they were not always able to find 
information which was readily available to 
them through the subject catalog. 

217