ABSTRACT
Library of Congress (LC) has been adding elements to the cards ever since, elements that are of little use to the Library of Congress itself. Although those elements are of limited use to readers working in the Library of Congress itself, many other improvements incorporated at the library profession's request have been of vast benefit to LC readers as well. The Cataloging in Publication program eliminated the need for buying catalog cards for bookstore kinds of books, but the cards represented less than 5 percent of what was being added to the Library of Congress and the great research libraries around the world. The National Union Catalog is essentially the great, total index to the world's publishing that Putnam and the Association of Research Libraries dreamed about, and many people believe it to be the most valuable service the Library renders the scholarly and library world.
