ABSTRACT
The catalog is used to present the resources of a library or a group of libraries to its users. The user approaches the catalog with an information need articulated in the form of a query. A search formulation of that query is matched against the bibliographic records (document representations) in the catalog. If the need is stated clearly, if the need is translated and searched in the catalog so that both the need and the constraints of catalog design are taken into consideration, if the information contained in the collection of documents is well represented in the bibliographic records, and if the bibliographic records match the search formulation, then the user is probably successful.
