katalogi

Katalogi is a term used in several languages to denote systematically organized listings of items designed to support discovery, identification and access. The concept spans multiple domains, including libraries, commerce, museums and data management. A catalog typically provides entries that describe a resource, indicate how to locate it, and enable users to retrieve or procure it.

In libraries, a catalog is a metadata-rich record for materials such as books, journals, maps and media. It supports search by title, author, subject or identifier, and it links to physical holdings or digital access. In commerce, product catalogs present items with prices, specifications and availability, organized to guide selection and purchase. Museums, archives and data centers maintain catalogs to describe objects, collections or datasets.

Catalogs rely on structured metadata and controlled vocabularies. Common standards include MARC and Dublin Core in bibliographic contexts, and ISO 25964 for thesauri and taxonomies; in e-commerce, product metadata uses schema.org, JSON-LD and product-specific schemas. Entries usually contain fields such as title, creator, date, format, rights, identifiers, subject terms and location.

Digital catalogs use search engines, facets, and relevance ranking to aid discovery. They can be accessed over the web, integrated through APIs, and harvested using protocols such as OAI-PMH in libraries. Data catalogs emphasize dataset descriptions, lineage, quality and accessibility, supporting data governance and re-use. Interoperability and data quality remain ongoing challenges.

Overall, catalogs organize information to improve findability, access and management of resources across disciplines. They evolve from paper card catalogs to sophisticated digital platforms, enabling cross-domain discovery, digital lending, e-commerce and data-driven decision making.