A moment of silence, please, in memory of the card catalog

[Vegas Halo Fan]

Those of us who looked for library books in the 1960s and 1970s (and before) remember these behemoths, these city-block-long monstrosities that contained an endless array of index cards that listed each book that the library had in its inventory, and told you where to look for it (to inevitably find it already gone) via the Dewey Decimal System. Although most libraries scrapped them (along with the Dewey) years ago, the library cooperative that printed the cards used in maintaining the old system has finally ceased production of them.

 

The Card Catalog Is Officially Dead

[Ray McKigney]

What happens if the computer system malfunctions? How will people find books then?

[gotbeer]

Even in the 80's, early 90's they were still in use.  Microfishe, looking through books that were in the library to do your research.  I remember going to UCLA in high school, because they had a larger variety of books to do reports on.  

[Guest]

What happens if the computer system malfunctions? How will people find books then?

lol

[gotbeer]

What happens if the computer system malfunctions? How will people find books then?

 

Restart the computer and hope that you saved your files and didn't lose much.  

 

Anyone remember those days?

[Tank]

What happens if the computer system malfunctions? How will people find books then?

People will just walk up and down the stacks aimlessly.

[Redondo]

I can remember using them

 

Much easier now for sure

[Lou]

" the Dewey decimal system. What a scam that was "

[Guest]

Restart the computer and hope that you saved your files and didn't lose much.  

 

Anyone remember those days?

 

Most of these library catalog systems are stored online/ "the cloud" rather than locally. Computer breaks? use a different one. 

 

Either way, it beats this:

 

[arch stanton]

Nobody ever hacked a microfiche reader. Think about that.

[Ray McKigney]

" the Dewey decimal system. What a scam that was "

 

That Dewey guy really cleaned up on that deal.