The Catalog of Infrared Observations and its associated data base comprise a summary of infrared astronomical observations published in the scientific literature from 1965 through 1997 in the wavelength range 1 micrometer - 1 mm. The database contains infrared observational data for sources outside the Solar System, constructed through a search of the most active scientific journals, IR surveys and catalogs. To date, about 6200 journal articles and 10 major survey catalogs have been included in the data base, which contains 374,653 individual observations of about 62,000 different infrared sources. More than 8,000 of these sources are identifiable with visible objects. The bibliographical files link observations in the catalog with the original articles published in the literature. References give the standard information plus full titles. The Index of Infrared Source Positions is ordered alphabetically by source name and can be used to quickly locate sources in the position-ordered catalog. For sources with no published IR source position, a nominal position may have been given based on other sources. Nominal positions are usually the best available, but not necessarily the true IR positions. Nominal position references are indicated in the index.