With the computerized circulation systems, circulation records are only kept back from the time the system went on line.
It’s getting harder to find a book that hasn’t been checked out since 1926. Most libraries will weed that book out of the collection to make room for new stuff. This then sets up conflict among the staff. Some never want to get rid of anything and others want to get rid of everything.
Of course, in order to get to the library, everyone had to walk twelve miles.
In the snow.
Barefoot.
Uphill.
Both ways.
The library at the high school where I teach (and which I attended) still uses the card-in-the-pocket technique; I would imagine that many (if not most) schools still do. It is interesting to look through a book and see that I checked it out as a student 15 years ago or to see the names of former classmates on the card.
Of course, the number of books being checked out is much less than in a public library, so it’s really no problem writing down the name of each book’s borrower.
My god, I feel old and I am only 17!!!
I remember the little pocket things and riffling through the card catologues.
I am another person who misses the little pocket things, not only was it cool that you found a book that interested you which nobody else ever read, it was also cool to find out that there was another person at your school who had the same interests as you and then track them down.
[hijack]
OP, out of curiosity, how old are you?
I want to know because I’m only 25, and am trying to gauge the age difference between us. I feel so old right now.
Damn you!
[/hijack]
I don’t think my library wrote names on the card. We had something like a 6 book limit, and so there were six little cards in each person’s name. When you went to the library, they would take your cards out of their alphabetically arranged draw. The books each had a little pocket in them containing a card with the name of the book, and that card that sat in the pocket had a pocket of it’s own. When you borrowed the book, they would sit your card in the pocket of the book’s card, and then put the pair in a slot marked for the due date.
I’m only 35, and until I was in high school (mid 1980s), the libraries in Pasadena, CA used the “microfilm” system, where they took a picture of your library card next to the card from the book (which has the title, author, etc on it).
More information about how the secret “ka-thunk” machine works:
I believe this is the system that most libraries use:
As a schoolboy in the 70s/80s, I remember the card system well. Two cards: one belonged to the borrower, and had the names of the books written in by hand (until both sides were full), and the other belonged to the book -the borrower’s number was written in, and the card was retained by the library. There was also a slip of paper stuck to the outside of the book’s card pocket. This had the due date stamped on it. In about 1981 or '82, this system was replaced by barcode scanning. There was never microfilm, or any other system, used. I remember this was before barcodes appeared on grocery items, etc, and was the first time I had ever seen them.
Of course, one advantage of the manual system (though perhaps not from the librarians’ point of view) which hasn’t been mentioned here was the book catalogue system. I remember hating having to use the new computers in the early 80s when I wanted to find a book, because there were never enough terminals. Prior to that, they used those cabinets full of countless card index drawers, and you’d be pretty unlucky to have to wait for somebody else to finish with the “Ca - Ce” drawer before you could use it.
Add me to the list of people feeling old.
Ha! I’m 25 as well. But my hometown library has done barcode scanning since 1985 or so. So that’s a good 15 years ago. And since then I’ve been members of a lot of different libraries, so it all kinda blends together.
I was particularly wondering about how they knew that you in particular had checked out the book, since I definitely didn’t remember anyone ever writing anything down when I was a kid. But the posts here have jogged my memory. We used to use the library cards with the little metal plates in them, that had your card number embossed, like acsenray described. So nothing was written down, and it all makes sense.
(BTW, this thread is almost as good as my “How did people get cash before ATM’s?” one for making people say how old they feel.)
No, I don’t know. Are you implying that poor people have character flaws that make them thieves? Poverty and immorality are not synonyms. How do you know that it wasn’t rich kids stealing the books?
That, plus, if you lived in a small town like I did, you knew who else was reading the same books as you.
Libertarian, check out that smilie that PhiloVance used. It was even included in your quote. I think he was being snide and/or sarcastic.
At the main library at the University of California, Berkeley, in the '70s, we were in an interim state between card-in-the-pocket and bar code readers. The system: when a book was checked out, the patron would write their personal info and the Library of Congress number of the book on a computer “punch card”. A clerk would take a stack of these cards, drop them into a key punch machine, and encode the LofC number on the card. Then all cards were merged into the big circulation file, using archaic IBM sort/merge equipment. There’d be 100,000 or so cards in the file at any one time.
When a book was checked in, a clerk would encode the LofC number of the book on a blank card. Then the check-in cards were run through the sort/merge machine, along with the circulation file, and the pairs of cards would drop out.
Professors were allowed to keep books out indefinitely. So their cards would wind up dog-eared and frayed from repeated runs through the equipment, and jam up the works.
I too loved the sound of the stamp as it hit the card. Really satisfying, and solid. I miss the card catalogue, in a big way. It had a certain smell to it, like a combination of the wood of the catalogue itself and the vanilla-paper-must-smell of the cards inside it. It made me sad when in high school our library began phasing out the card catalogue, and started using the old cards as scratch paper next to the computer catalogues.
Just like in Rushmore!
I remember the card system too. I actually volunteered in my elementary school library during noon hours/french class (I was a french canadian in a classfull of english canadians - I knew how to say please and thank-you in French, so they let me spend time elsewhere! 
). I am only 21, and this was about 10 years ago.
I also kind of miss the card catalogue, but, on the other hand, my school library currently has a FANTASTIC online catalogue, which I find so easy to use. We also have “virtual reference” where you can chat with a librarian to get help during the day, and Guelph subscribes to more online versions of journals than hardcopy ones, so for someone who lives out-of-town, its a lot easier to do research without having to drive up there (or worse, navigate the McMaster library catalogue!).
www.lib.uoguelph.ca
My local library only switched over from cards to a scanner six months ago.
As I mentioned before, the school where I teach still uses the written card system for checking out books. I’d like to add that they still use the card catalogue for looking up books as well.
There are six brand-spanking-new computers with internet access, so it’s not like the library is ancient in its technology or anything; I guess they figure it’s just not worth it for a small school library to stop using the good old card catalogue system, or for that matter the hand-written book-checking-out method.
The only thing that’s automated in that library is the little time clock where students have to punch their library pass to show what time they got there!