Just write the school, enclose a check for $5, $10, or perhaps $15, and within three to six weeks the catalog will be in your mail. But what about the prospective college applicant who needs five catalogs, or a high school guidance counselor who needs a hundred or more, or a librarian who would like thousands in a reference collection?

The traditional process of acquiring catalogs for quantity users was basically the same, multiplied by the number of catalogs desired in the collection. Then all the catalogs would have to be stored and indexed for easy retrieval and to keep the collection current, the entire process would have to be repeated year after year.

That changed with the introduction of the College Catalog Collections by CollegeSource, Inc. (formerly the Career Guidance Foundation). Each year CollegeSource acquires catalogs from nearly 3,000 U.S. colleges and universities, plus 700 international schools. In 1994, CollegeSource began converting these catalogs to a digitized format for distribution on CD-ROM and the Internet. The catalogs are indexed and distributed throughout the world for use by educational professionals, students, administrators, guidance counselors and others.

The College Catalog Collections were created by Harry G. Cooper, a pioneer in the computer and micrographics industry and a member of a task force organized by President Lyndon B. Johnson's Advisor on Education, to study improvements in the country's career guidance efforts. At that time it was estimated that the Microfiche Collections could save the academic community more than $100 million each year in printing, mailing and maintenance costs, while increasing catalog distribution to millions of patrons worldwide.

Since its inception in 1971, the CollegeSource has continued to improve its products and services to the educational community. Today's collections include 50748 U.S. and international catalogs, representing 2-year, 4-year and graduate institutions, as well as law, medical and specialty schools. The new electronic catalogs are completely searchable allowing even the most obscure information to be found in seconds. And with the Collection now available on the Web, this resource is easily available to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.