How hard would it be to write a catalogesqe system that would keep track of sessions and allow the 'customer' to add items to a list so that they could print it out?
Depends on how complex you want it to be. From what your said so far probably not too hard. But you will need knowledge in Sessions and keeping them initiated and looking after each sessions code so there will not be session hijacking.
should i try and do the catalogue first, then add sessions or do the catalogue and sessiosn at the same time?