When the form of a catalogue can be determined only by viewing its physical or outer appearance, it is called the physical form of a catalogue. The best physical form of catalogue should possess as many as possible of the following attributes:

1. Easy to use: It must be easy to use, i.e., to handle and consult, preferably by more than one reader at a time, and be easily accessible to readers and staff.
2. Up-to-dateness or Flexibility: It must be easy to keep up-to-date, i.e., it should allow new entries to be inserted and old entries withdrawn whenever necessary.
3. Easy to Scan: It must be easy to scan, i.e., glance over a number of entries at once.
4. Production of Copies: It must be easy to produce multiple copies, or alternatively, be accessible to a maximum number of readers at a time.
5. Occupation of Less Space: It must occupy as little space as possible, both on the floor and shelf, and should not be bulky.
6. Easy to Guide: It must be easy to guide, i.e., to enable the user to find relevant entries with the minimum of trouble.
7. Portability: It should be portable within or outside the library.
8. Less Time Consuming: Production and use of a catalogue, including preparation, sorting, rearranging, filling, and searching, should take as little time as possible.
9. Economic/Cheap:  Its production and maintenance should be as cheap as possible.

We can easily tell if a catalogue is in book, card, microfiche or online form only by viewing its outer look. There may be various forms of catalogue:

1. Printed, book, or volume form
2. Guard book
3. Card
4. Sheaf
5. Visible index
6. Microform/Computer Output Microform (COM)
7. Microfilm
8. Microfiche
9. Machine-Readable (MARC) or Online

• Printed or Book catalogue:

Typed or printed entries on cards or slips are pasted or mounted on thick papers alphabetically and then printed in several columns in each page. The pages are then bound in book form in several volumes. The best example is the Library of Congress (LC) or British Museum (BM) printed catalogue. A Page of LC printed catalogue contains approximately 25 entries in 3 columns. To minimize time, labor and money, generally five years’ cumulating of entries is necessary for printing .It becomes portable and easy to use, but occupies a large space on shelves and turns into a closed-document the moment it is out of the press. It is very expensive.

• Guard book catalogue:

 It is a book format containing several entries on each page but made by hand by pasting slips, often cut out from printed accession list, to the pages of huge guard books. Entries are kept as widely spaced as possible to allow additional insertions. On filling up a page, the leaf is removed, and entries are cut up and dispersed over an increased number of pages. The BM and some academic libraries in Europe maintained this form. The BM had a guard book catalogue of 1250 volumes. Now this form is bygone and no longer in use.

• Card catalogue:

Bibliographic items are typed on 5 in.X 3 in. [or 12.5 cm X 7.5 cm] cards and indexed in trays of a catalogue cabinet. It can be kept up-to-date by inserting new entries, but it occupies large floor space and is not portable. It is difficult to produce multiple copies, and problems occur in its use as the same tray is frequently required by more than one reader at the same time. Its production apparently looks economic, but is ultimately expensive when salaries of a number of catalogers and classifiers and costs of typewriters and other equipment are considered.

• Sheaf catalogue:

It is an old form in which entries are recorded on separate paper slips (usually 6 in. X 4 in.), which are filed in specially made or manufactured loose-leaf binders. Each binder holds approximately 500–600 slips. This catalogue was used mostly in school and small public libraries.

• Visible index:

This may be of two types:

1. an “office” type equipment, either holding cards with only a certain depth of edge visible or
2. In narrow strips (about ¼ inch wide), which are mounted one below the other in a frame. It may be used mainly as periodicals catalogs or subject indexed to classified catalogs.

• Microform: This includes:

1.  Microfilm: It is a form in which entries are greatly reduced and printed upon films. It is necessary to have a projector that enlarges the movie on a screen.
2. Microfiche: It is a transparent card type format kept in an envelope. It requires a ‘reader’ to read the microfiche. Each microfiche can hold approximately 4320 entries. Microfiche has the advantage of direct access to a particular frame, whereas microfilm requires a serial search through the film to reach a required entry.
3. Computer-Output Microform (COM) catalogues are produced on either microfilm or microfiche. It is feasible to provide a completely integrated new catalogue every three months or so rather than providing supplements to be used with the main catalogue. COM catalogues are possible even for small libraries through commercial vendors to whom the library may send its bibliographic records. The vendor processes the new bibliographic records, integrates them with the particular library’s existing catalog, and sends new (COM) catalogues at specified intervals. It occupies less space. It can be kept up-to-date periodically .It is quite cheap but it requires several ‘readers’. It may be portable should the users have their own ‘readers’ at home.

• Machine Readable (MARC) or Online Catalogue:

It is the latest format which permits input and storage of bibliographic items on magnetic tape or magnetic disc, creating a central database for manipulation through a terminal or computer. Online systems are linked directly with the computer by internet cable. Access is by terminal called Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), which may look like an ordinary typewriter or like a television usually equipped with a keyboard. The search may be by author, title, subject, keyword, call number., etc. It occupies less space. Its use requires a little training. It is expensive in the beginning, but becomes cheap in the long run when no further terminals are to be bought.

• CD-ROM catalogue:

Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) catalogue is a recent offshoot of the machine-readable format. CD-ROMs are optical discs which are written and read by a laser beam. Discs can store vast amounts of data in digital form. For example, the British Libraries General Catalog of printed books to 1975 was launched in 1989 on three small discs to cover 178,000 pages. To read a disc, a suitable microcomputer filled with a CD-ROM drive is required. The fast development of IT has contributed largely to national and international library cooperation through the exchange or distribution of CD-ROM catalogues at a cheaper cost than the printed catalogue.

The physical or outer forms of a catalogue, such as printed books, brochures, and digital formats, serve as essential tools for organizing and presenting information in a structured manner. These forms enhance accessibility, allowing users to easily navigate and locate desired items. Their design and usability significantly impact the overall user experience, making them a crucial aspect of effective information dissemination.

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