Objectives of Subject Cataloguing 

All forms of subject catalogues have a two-fold objective: first to enable an enquirer to identify documents on a given subject and second, to make known the presence of material on allied or related subjects.  Shera and Egan (1956) summarise the objectives of subject cataloguing as follows: 

1. To provide access by subject to all relevant material; 
2. To provide subject access to materials  through all suitable principles of subject organisation such as matter and applications; 
3. To bring together references to  materials, which treat  substantially the same subject regardless of differences among groups of subject specialists, and/or from the changing nature of the concepts with the discipline itself, 
4. To show such affiliations among subject  fields, which may depend upon use or application of knowledge; 
5. To provide entry through  any vocabulary common to a considerable group of users, specialists or laymen; 
6. To provide formal description of the subject content of any bibliographic unit in the most precise, or specific terms possible: whether the description is in the form of a class, number or symbol; and 
7. To provide means to the users to make a selection from among all terms in any particular category, according to any chosen set of criteria  such as, most thorough, most recent, etc.