# How did libraries keep track of who borrowed what before computers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488 "2003-03-06T14:22:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488/21 "2003-03-06T19:49:18Z")
When I worked in a library, we were transitioning between totally manual and semi-automated. The borrower would fill out a punch card with their name & address for each book they borrowed. A library clerk would then drop the punch card into a punch card machine, and encode the book’s Library of Congress number. Then the cards were read through antiquated IBM card sorting & merging equipment, to get the new cards merged with the old ones. This was University of California, Berkeley, so there were about 100,000 books checked out at any one time–so there were a lot of cards in the file. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488/22 "2003-03-06T20:19:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zsofia \* > \*\*A big library (no, I don’t actually remember this - we just talked about it a few weeks ago in my library school indexing class) would have dates or numbers or however you wanted to organize a thing by running up the side of the card your name was on that they took out of the pocket and holes next to the numbers. When you checked it out, they took a hole punch thing and cut a chunk out of the due date one so the hole was no longer closed. Then when time’s up, they put all the cards together and ran a probe-knitting-needle-thing through the hole they were looking for and shook the thing - theoretically, yours would fall out. Sometimes you’d get “false drops”, which I’ve heard bad search engine results referred to these days sometimes, which is where that comes from. Obviously, you couldn’t do this too many times over with a single card, though, so it seems like a pretty wasteful system. \*\* This particular system usually came with cards that had 10 or 12 holes along the side. The items were usually checked out in intervals so that you couldn’t repeat punching a hole without having to fill out a new card. When I was just a humble student assistant, I finally graduated up the ladder where I got to use the needle to shake the cards. It was an auspicious day. After two or three times, it wasn’t particularly fun and you realized that it was usually the same people who fell out. Or it could be professors and there was nothing you could do to them to get them to return materials. ---
**Author:** ![CaptainGeordie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@CaptainGeordie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptainGeordie)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488/23 "2003-03-06T20:40:11Z")
I’ve worked in Public Libraries for almost thirty years, and in that time we had three different issue systems. The Brown System. Basically, filing into slim drawers or trays a small card on which was printed the Accession or Stock number of the book, with author and title underneath, This was inserted into the reader;s ticket, shaped like a pocket, and then filed in numberical order by date of issue. The drawback was you had no way of checking to see who had the book out last. We then entered into a slight variation of the above when we introduced plastic tokens to be used for the issue/discharge of fiction books only. It was very quick, but not really practical as you had no way of knowing who had which fiction book out. They were allowed six tokens, therfore only six books were allowed out, but we didn’t have any way of identifying them or any recall system. The Third issue system we use is computerised. An all singing, all dancing, systems called Talis. It’s a manual/semi-automated system whereby barcodes on the book and the readers card are scanned, and the date due for return is stamped manually. This system tells us pretty much everything, including previous loan history, number of issues, location, shelf status and we have a reservation system, and overdue book printouts which can be posted. Ain’t life wonderful. Unfortunatey my job at present is quite stressful. so I want to go back to the days when books were chained to the wall… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488.md?page=1)