The catalogue (and the cataloguer): a defenseless entity?

Abstract

The author reflects upon the work of cataloguing in present times. He wonders how to harmonize the precision and universality of cataloguing rules and the growing of different cultural needs and information behaviours. Against the widespread ideas on “disintermediation” allowed by information and communication technologies, the author reaffirms the crucial role, although with a quite new background, of librarians and cataloguers as intermediaries between users and documents, between citizens and the information world.