It could be worse – someone here who works in a library told us a story of finding roadkill in the over night drop-off box. :eek:
This is how it worked at my local library well into the 80s. I guess there must’ve been a massive collection of microfilm somewhere that they kept the records on.
I joined my local library in the 1980s, but it was already being computerizing at the time. However, it was a mixed system at the time. They still had a card catalog, but not all the books were on the shelves. Sections were missing so they could be entered into the new computerized catalog/circulation system, going in order of the Dewey system. If you wanted a book that was in process, you went to the circulation desk and asked for it. As the the work was being done in-house, they’d send a runner to get a book and whoever was doing the catalog work would make a note of it. This happened to me and I turned out to be the third person the system notified as having an overdue book, showing that it did work. Fortunately, whoever that was did quick work so that the books were quickly back on the shelves.
Exactamundo. And if there was a format error in typing either of those call numbers, they would never match.
Ah yes, another Encyclopedia Brown fan!!
All of my library cards, up until 94-ish, were the metal plate type you’re talking about. Also, when I worked in my college’s library for work study, we had those, plus these older types with just the person’s number on them that you had to use the old “stamp date on return slip, etc.” method. Those were NIGHTMARES because the paper or whatever they were made from degraded quickly and you’d have a professor come in with one, and about six zillion books.
Which reminds me, I need to not only get a new Kanawha Co library card, but one for the Capitol Library [makes note].
I forgot to mention earlier that my elementary school was private, and they actually had a self-serve library. You’d go in and find your book, put your library card in its place, take the card out of the book, write your name on it, and use the date stamp, and put it in this little box.
My church still has this system for its library. And, for a while, the library was down stairs away from everything, and you could easily steal stuff. Yip, they still used the honor system.
I have worked in a library (in Sweden) that used both systems: Dewey for mathematics and UDC for everything else.
BTW I also read the other day that Keith Richards uses Dewey for his book collection.
I just finished Library School a few months ago and UDC wasn’t even mentioned. I just learned it existed in this thread.
I recall roughly shoebox-sized stamper/puncher machines - the patron’s card went into a slot on the top of the machine and the book’s card was stamped with your card info. The librarian had to remember to set a knob on the side of the machine to the appropriate date - IIRC, new titles had a one-week loan and regular titles had a two-week loan. A generic return date card was placed into the book’s card pocket - this was also punched in the machine.
The cards themselves would get a little square nipped off the edge so the machine could stamp the next date without overlapping the previous dates.
I think most of the checkout machine’s bulk was noise insulation - wouldn’t be right for a machine to make a lot of racket in a library, so the thing went *chuggk *instead of WHAP-BANG. Strangely, I’ve been completely unsuccessful in finding images of the cards or machines.
Then, somewhere in the early 80s, the library went to a computerized system with patrons’ cards and books all sporting barcodes. Instead of the soft *chuggk, chuggk, chuggk of the stampers, it was a cacophony of Beep! Beep! Beep! of the readers and WHUNK! WHUNK! WHUNK! *of the machines to deactivate the 3M “Tattle-Tale” theft-reduction strips.
Yeah, that’s the future. We’re actually experimenting with self-sorting returns now - the machine reads the RFID and sends it down a conveyor belt and shoves it into a bin for where it needs to go - that branch or another one or whatever. I haven’t seen it in action, as a system for the Main library would be extremely expensive evidently so we’re testing it, but I’m sure “Powerhouse” plays.
Yes. Little Richard and Melvil Dewey: his biggest influences.
BTW, happy Library Week
Eventually, your prank would have been discovered. Libraries generally do inventory once a year and all the books on the shelf were checked for proper placement and if they somehow re-appeared on the shelf.
The poor person who was blamed for having the wrong book out would be vindicated.
I remember having to do Inventory against the card catalog and the overdue/lost books cards.
Nowadays, with the use of barcodes and RFID chips, those kinds of pranks would no longer work.
I never received my high school diploma because a person with my exact same name had checked out a book and never returned it.
Maybe I should go back there and clear that up.
If I recall correctly, when Woodward and Bernstein were investigating the Watergate break-in one of the things they had to do was go through the checkout cards at the Library of Congress (or some library) to find out some information - in the movie All the Presidents’ Men there’s an overhead scene of them at a table surrounded by thousands of the cards. Very relevant to all library goers when the movie came out. Probably needs footnotes for anyone born in the last 25 years, or else they’d be going “Huh?”
even with computerized systems circulation records and fines are still monitored from prior systems.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100417/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_george_washington_library_fines
At our library a child did not get a library card. You parent signed a document saying they would be responsible for lost/damaged or late books. Then you name was added to all the names of those who could check out books (I remember it looked like a ferris wheel like rolodex of names on rolodex like cards). Then when you wanted to check out a book you took the book to the desk. They would look in this “rolodex” if your name was on a card there you could check out the book. If not they would give you paper work to have your parent fill out and you returned to get your name put in the “rolodex”. Then there was a card in the pocket that was usually in the front of the book, the card was stamped with the date the book was to be returned or renewed by and the pocket was stamped with the same date. I think the card that was in the pocket was filed somewhere in some order probably by the date it was due back (I was under 12 so I’m not sure) since they had to find the card that went into the pocket if you wanted to renew the book so both you and they knew the new return date. What I’m wondering is what system they used from the system described above (in Los Angeles County in the 1960’s) until the current system of bar codes and bar code readers? Since I was working from the 1970’s until 2010 I did not have the time to go to the library (it was closed when I got home and I did not have time on the weekends to visit). It was easier (but more expensive) to go to the book store and buy the book.
QFT.
Zombie memories, but fine memories all the same.
This is how I remember it being done here in Houston, Tx. when I was just a wee lad, back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. 
‘Dating’ myself, ain’t I? :smack:
We still have this at work. The library holdings as books are small, so there were only 20 books out in the card file.It had authors a to Z! Journals I just tell them I have an issue and they will let me have it for a day.