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How does a dictionary catalog arrange library entries?

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British Museum: Reading Room — library Reading Room of the British Museum, designed by Sidney Smirke in collaboration with Anthony Panizzi and built in the 1850s. Illustration by Smirke, from the *Illustrated London News*, 1857.

A dictionary catalog arranges library entries—including authors, titles, and subjects—into a single, unified alphabetical sequence.12

This system is widely used in public libraries, particularly in the United States, because it is generally considered the easiest format for casual or general readers to navigate. By consolidating all types of entries into one file, it avoids the complexity of separate files for different categories, which are found in other systems like the divided catalog or the classed catalog.2