From its very foundation, the Library of the Romanian Academy has decided that the bibliographical description of its collections must be performed according to international standards. Thus, the approximately 10,000,000 of bibliographic units owned by the library are retrieved, according to the type of document, in various catalogues.

The books catalogue
Initiated by Alexandru Odobescu in 1874, the books catalogue has been developed on scientific criteria by Ioan Bianu. According to the same principles, this catalogue includes today the bibliographic descriptions of over 800,000 book titles on 5,000,000 cards. In 1998, as a first step in the library’s computerization, the online cataloguing has been initiated, and from 2000 on, the hardcopy catalogues ceased to be updated.

The serials catalogue
For the first time in 1888, the serials collection of the Library of the Romanian Academy was mentioned as an independent collection, and today it represents the most complete Romanian serials collection in the whole world, including serials printed in Romanian or in foreign languages. Around 60,000 titles are catalogued in this collection, of which 5,000 titles have been added during the last 10 years. The online cataloguing has been initiated in 1999, and a year later the retroconversion started.

The special collections catalogues
Contain bibliographic descriptions of the collections of old books, rare books, manuscripts, personal archives and correspondence. Some of the catalogues have been printed, while others are on cards. The published “Romanian Manuscripts Catalogue” and “Old Romanian Bibliography” are well-known research tools. The Old Romanian Books catalogue started to be retroconversed online in 1998 and, excepting the publications printed in the 19th century, this project has been completed. Experimentally, the on-line retroconversion of the correspondence card catalogue has also begun.