Collection catalog (also referred to as a collections catalog) is a systematic and organized record of the items comprising a particular collection, such as those held by museums, archives, or galleries. It documents each item's existence, attributes, and relationships within the whole.
In museums, the collection of cultural property or material is normally catalogued in a collection catalog. Traditionally this was done using a card index, but nowadays it is normally implemented using a computerized database (known as a collection database) and may even be made available online.
A collection catalog typically includes descriptive metadata encompassing elements such as title, creator or author, date of creation or acquisition, physical description, provenance, and other identifying information. According to the U.S. National Park Service's Museum Handbook, a collection catalog is "an overview of the holdings of a museum, or a vehicle for studies in material culture or natural history."
Collection catalogs differ from library catalogs in that they document objects and artifacts rather than published texts. They are distinct from finding aids (used in archival science) and from simple inventories, as they provide richer descriptive and contextual information about each item.
See also
- Library catalog
- Calendar (archives) and Finding aid
- Inventory (museum)
- Inventory (library and archival science)
