The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures

By The Library of Congress and Carla D. Hayden

From the archives of the Library of Congress: “An irresistible treasury for book and library lovers.” —Booklist (starred review)

The Library of Congress brings book lovers an enriching tribute to the power of the written word and to the history of our most beloved books. Featuring more than two hundred full-color images of original catalog cards, first edition book covers, and photographs from the library’s magnificent archives, this collection is a visual celebration of the rarely seen treasures in one of the world’s most famous libraries and the brilliant catalog system that has kept it organized for hundreds of years.

Packed with engaging facts on literary classics—from Ulysses to The Cat in the Hat to Shakespeare’s First Folio to The Catcher in the Rye—this is an ode to the enduring magic and importance of books.

“The Card Catalog is many things: a lucid overview of the history of bibliographic practices, a paean to the Library of Congress, a memento of the cherished card catalogs of yore, and an illustrated collection of bookish trivia . . . . The illustrations are amazing: luscious reproductions of dozens of cards, lists, covers, title pages, and other images guaranteed to bring a wistful gleam to the book nerd’s eye.” —The Washington Post

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781452158587

Book preview

Main Reading Room, Library of Congress, circa 1950.

Introduction

Wandering the stacks at the Library of Congress can be as overwhelming as it is inspiring. Drifting through the maze of bookshelves evokes images of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’s fictional Library of Babel—a seemingly infinite labyrinth of books. Being surrounded by the collected memory of the human race is a reminder of the intrinsic desire for both knowledge and organization. Ever since the emergence of the written word, humans have scribbled down myths, stories, histories, and natural observations and worked tirelessly to gather and protect these fragments of a shared past.

Evolving alongside, in the shadows of the written word, was one of the most versatile and durable technologies in history: the library catalog—a road map for navigating this wilderness of books. The humble yet powerful card catalog progressed slowly and, like countless other important inventions, owes its existence to a number of brilliant thinkers, as well as to the twists and turns of history. From the peculiar and idiosyncratic methods of ancient libraries to far more intricate, comprehensive modern attempts, library catalogs are a tangible example of humanity’s effort to establish and preserve the possibility of order.

Assembled in handsome oak cabinets, the card catalog once framed the palatial Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. It has now fallen to the exigencies of modern life, replaced by the flickering screens of the online computer catalog. One would need to venture farther into the stacks to find the Main Card Catalog. Opening a drawer and flipping through the well-worn cards, many handwritten and filled with marginalia containing valuable information not to be found in an Internet search, leaves one with a sense of awe at how catalogers distilled so much information onto simple 3-by-5-inch index cards—cards that still sit neatly filed, waiting to reveal the treasures hidden in the hundreds of miles of Library stacks on Capitol Hill.

—PETER DEVEREAUX

Writer-Editor, The Library of Congress

Die Bibliothek der Universität Leyden La bibliothèque de l’université de Leyde. Jan Cornelis Woudanus, circa 1570-1615.

Chapter 1

Origins of the Card Catalog

Cuneiforms to Playing Cards

Bill of sale, Sumerian cuneiform tablet, 2200-1900 B.C.

The logical idea of using a tablet for cataloging purposes parallels other clerical applications, such as accounting and documentation.

CATALOGS OF CLAY

The origin of the card catalog goes back to the cradle of civilization nestled in the fertile ground between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. About 3000 B.C., the Sumerians, who flourished in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), used ordinary reeds as styli to make impressions on wet clay. In doing so, they devised what is considered the first writing system. This system, called cuneiform, was initially used by bureaucrats to keep records of daily economic activity and was consigned to a modest group of scribes. As cuneiform gradually grew more refined over the millennia, scribes used it to engrave Sumerian oral literary works onto clay tablets. Excavations beginning in the late nineteenth century uncovered thousands of these tablets—filled with epic poems, hymns, fables, and myths.

One tablet, found near the Sumerian city of Nippur and dated around 2000 B.C., was clearly identified as a library catalog by renowned Sumerian history and language expert S. N. Kramer. At just 2 ¹/2 by 1 ¹/2 in (6.5 by 4 cm), the tablet foreshadowed the use of small index cards in cataloging, and it was divided into two columns listing the titles of sixty-two literary works. Among these titles was the oldest surviving piece of Western literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey by more than fifteen hundred years. The epic poem follows the adventures of the legendary king of Uruk through fierce battles and tender moments of friendship and grief as he attempts to make sense of his life.

THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA’S GREAT CATALOG—THE PINAKES

From Pythagoras to Euclid, Homer to Sophocles, and Plato to Aristotle, the scholars, poets, playwrights, and philosophers of ancient Greece profoundly influenced Western civilization. Much of Western science, literature, and philosophy—and the methods used to organize them—can trace their roots to this period of antiquity.

Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered Greece and much of the known world in the third century B.C. In the wake of his conquests, the most dynamic hubs of Greek culture could be found outside of Greece. On the Nile Delta he planned a monument to Greek cultural supremacy, the Library of Alexandria, the greatest library of antiquity. The library would attempt to encompass a universal scope never before seen, and was destined to become the intellectual center of the Mediterranean.

As no archaeological evidence remains, what this library looked like can only be gleaned from hints found in a few written accounts. The collection did not consist of books but rather scrolls. When Alexandria was founded in the fourth century B.C., the written word had moved on from the sturdy clay tablets to a fragile form of paper called papyrus. Papyrus was made from reeds found along the Nile and was fairly simple and cheap to produce but difficult to preserve over time. After the composition was complete, the papyrus was rolled over a peg and precariously stacked in piles.

It is in this library, dedicated to arts, intellectual exploration, and the advancement of science, that one finds the true precursor to the card catalog. As the scrolls began to pile up, the library staff faced a challenging job, for unlike modern books, the scrolls had no title page, table of contents, or index. In many cases the scrolls did not even list an author, and longer works, such as the plays of Sophocles or Euripides, would often take up many scrolls with no indication as to their proper order. Alexandria’s first librarian, Zenodotus, attempted to put this mass of scrolls in order. The scrolls were inventoried and then organized alphabetically, with a tag affixed to the end of each scroll indicating the author, title, and subject. These three categories came to define the traditional card catalog and are still the cornerstone of library cataloging.

Hermann Göll, Die Weisen und Gelehrten des Alterthums, 2nd edition. Leipzig (Otto Spamer), 1876.

Artist rendering of the interior of the Library of Alexandria.

With some semblance of structure applied to the collection, the Greek poet and scholar Callimachus was chosen to devise a way to provide reliable access to the scrolls. His cataloging and classification of the papyrus scrolls made him one of the most important figures in library history. Around 250 B.C., he compiled his Pinakes, or Tables of Those Who Were Outstanding in Every Phase of Culture, and Their Writings—in 120 Books. The Pinakes functioned as both a bibliography and an aid to finding the most important Greek works held by the Library of Alexandria.

The Pinakes was arguably the first time anyone compiled a sophisticated list of authors and their works. From

Reviews for The Card Catalog

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was hard to believe that someone could write 227 pages on library card catalogs, but in reality, three quarters of those pages are photos. Written by the Library of Congress, The Card Catalog: Books, Cards and Literary Treasures includes a short history on the evolution of the card catalog and is mostly a venue to display various books in its collection (mostly first editions)...alongside of which is a copy of an index card from a card catalog. This is all fine with me.For those of us who are library users, the card catalog is a thing of the past...unless, like me, you have one in your home. Those user friendly little index cards detailing the pertinent information about a book have gone electronic and there is no more flipping through cards to find what you're looking for...as lamented by various authors and poets when asked to sign catalog cards of their works for an exhibit.The various great libraries of the world, especially the one in ancient Alexandria, needed some way of cataloging their holdings. As writing surfaces evolved from papyrus to codex to paper, the ability to catalog library holdings improved, both from the framework of the writing implements as well as the system by which items were cataloged. Most of us are familiar with the Dewey Decimal System and some of us with the Library of Congress Subject Headings. The Library of Congress itself evolved from a library to support the fledgling United States Congress to becoming the premier library in the world, supplying cataloging information to libraries worldwide. One tidbit of note: in the initial training programs for librarians in the United States, the penmanship of an index card used for cataloging purposes was one of the courses. If you're looking for some easy reading about books or want to learn a little bit about the cataloging of books, The Card Catalog is an enjoyable two day read. Book lovers will enjoy this immensely.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a delightful book that combines a history of book cataloguing with some great historical images. The timeline ranges from the Great Library of Alexandria, when the notion of somehow classifying and cataloguing all those scrolls first began, to modern-day electronic catalogs. But the bulk of the story, as the title suggests, is about the classic card catalog — individual 3- by 5-inch cards that contain the vital bibliographic information needed to help library staff and patrons find books on the shelves. With encouragement from the fledgling American Library Association, the Library of Congress was perhaps the key player in standardizing the card catalog by creating and selling printed cards to libraries across the country to build their own catalogs without each having to re-create the wheel, so to speak. The description and images of the room where this took place gives a hint at the immense scale of the project, which sometimes threatened to overwhelm the actual cataloguing of books.As informative as I found the text to be, the illustrations are the real star of the show. Along with the historical images, there are many sets of images showing classic book covers, frontispieces or title pages, paired with that volume's corresponding catalog card. Some of the cards are handwritten, some are printed, but it's fascinating to explore each one and remember just how much information could be squeezed onto a small index card. If you're of an age (as I am) to remember actually using card catalogs, I'm sure you will feel the same sense of nostalgia that I did. I spent many a happy hour in a library, letting the cross-references on cards lead me on a merry chase across the catalog and through the author, subject, and title cards it contained. It reminds me of using a dictionary, where looking up one word inevitably leads me on a happy browse through related and unrelated terms.Because the images are such an important element, I would recommend reading this book either in paper format or as an ebook on a color screen. I used my iPad and was happy to be able to enlarge the images to see details. I didn't even try to read it on my e-ink reader, though, as I can't imagine that small black-and-white format would provide any joy for this book.

[quilted_kat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have admittedly been sitting on this book for several months, simply because it is so beautiful. Lots of photos of beautiful old card catalogues. For anyone who grew up visiting old-school libraries, this book is a treat. It is the perfect gift for your favorite librarian or bibliophile.

[donnamariemerritt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed this history of the card catalog! The real treasures are the images of cards, e.g., the card for The Catcher in the Rye that describes Salinger like this: "writes short stories for the New Yorker; his first novel."

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A gorgeous, lavishly-illustrated book that is the a perfect gift for the lovers of books and libraries in your life, especially if they were around for the card catalog years. Over 200 color photos, with reproductions of interesting original catalog cards, book art, and photos of early library staff. I do miss the old things - for all the benefits of electronic cataloging and searching, they lack the visceral joy of browsing through a real physical catalog, and I'm one who loved finding interesting serendipitous things along the way and reading the information found on old-fashioned cards. Electronic cataloging just doesn't have that warmth.

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The text of this book is a smidgen of book history, a dash of Library of Congress history, with a solid helping of (American) cataloguing history but the real focus here is the images of works and cards from the LoC card catalogue. A delight to flip through for library and book nerds. As a library professional, I also enjoyed the historical photos of some of the work spaces in ye olden days. Beautiful and a deceptively fast read, I definitely recommend it if it strikes your fancy.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I spent a pleasant, rainy afternoon perusing this history of the card catalog. The book gives a good overview of library history (the roots of the card catalog go all the way back to ancient Sumer) with a heavy emphasis on the Library of Congress's role as the leading U.S. library and producer of card-catalog cards. Although the barely credited personal author Peter Devereaux shows a healthy respect for those three-by-five index cards of old, he warns readers not to get too nostalgic for the days of the card catalog. The old card catalogs made huge demands on libraries' available spaces, and filing all those cards was a tedious, never-ending task. Online public access catalogs (OPACs), which have replaced the card catalog in most settings, are an improvement in almost every way. Lavishly illustrated with facsimiles of classic book covers and their corresponding card catalog cards, this volume is essentially a coffee-table book without the oversized dimensions. I wish there had been more explanation of the cryptic notations on the reproduced cards. Still, I found this book a worthy tribute to a bygone library era. Highly recommended.

[raucousrain · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I did not win an ER copy, so I requested The Card Catalog as my Mothers Day gift this year. I arrived early – and truly, it is a treasure. Pure delight to turn the pages and immerse myself in all that is contained in this book! Interesting and well-researched information, old photographs of libraries, and images of actual card catalogs and unique individual cards, as well as lovely covers of many beautiful old tomes.I have the book resting in a book stand on top of my own antique 9-drawer oak and brass card catalog in my small personal library. (I use Library Thing to keep track of my books now – and I store my old audio cassette tapes in the card catalog.)

[lisapeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From my LJ review:Beautifully designed and executed, this explores cross-sections of several histories: of the Library of Congress itself; of the science of cataloging, from cuneiform tablets and bound bibliographies to automated card production and, ultimately, the card’s replacement by machine-readable formats; and the cards themselves as aesthetic objects. Interspersed throughout the text are images to delight book lovers—covers and title pages of classics from Shakespeare’s First Folio to The Joy of Cooking, often first editions from the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, with their accompanying cards. These are wonderful eye candy, but also, on close reading, fascinating records of the cataloging process, complete with revisions, corrections, marginalia, and name changes. The book is particularly strong on the politics of cataloging within the Library, from Thomas Jefferson’s original collection (geography titles were listed north to south) to early Librarians of Congress’s resistance to involvement in cooperative library activities to the Library’s explorations of early computer systems and eventual adoption of MARC; the catalog was officially “frozen” in 1980.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This gorgeous edition will make any bibliophile squeal. The incredible detail shows the author's love of books on every level with a gorgeous collection of detailed photos throughout. There's even a library card in the inside cover! We learn about the history of the card catalogue, going back thousands of years. As long as the written word has existed, in books or scrolls, etc., there has been a way of organizing it. From the library of Alexander the Great to the modern Library of Congress, there's no shortage of information.In addition to a detailed discussion of the origin of card catalogs, the entire book is full of catalogue cards from famous books. Charlotte's Web, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Wizard of Oz, Walden, the list goes on and on! On each spread featuring an individual classic, there are photos of the original covers on the left hand side and the catalogue card on the right. There's also a detailed description providing a little info on the book itself.One chapter walks of through the switch from a classic card catalog to an automated version. Obviously things have changed drastically in the last 100 years and this book does not neglect those advances in technology.BOTTOM LINE: For library nerds (myself included) and lovers of antique books, this collection is such a treat!

[murderbydeath · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is probably the most pleasant, and by extension, interesting, history of something as mundane as a card catalog as I'm likely to ever run across. From the first example of a book catalog, pressed into clay in cuneiform, to the modern day usage of MARC records, the text flows in a tight, succinct narrative that is neither chatty nor dry (and I'm sure nowhere near comprehensive). Where the book truly shines is in its photographs and illustrations. The author and publisher were generous with the photographs and they fill at least 1/3 of the pages. Most of them are photos of the old cards and the books they belong to, but there are many old pictures of the Library of Congress and other related images. The number of cards the Library of Congress had to deal with daily in the mid-50's is staggering. I can't even imagine the logistics. Did you know that the Library of Congress still has their old card catalog and it's still in use? (Most of it.) I think that's wonderful and the perfect example of how old and new methodologies can complement each other instead of competing. This isn't the kind of book that's going to have wide appeal, but for those that find the subject interesting, it's a beautiful book, thoughtfully put together.

[tatoosh-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Library patrons from earlier centuries would have regarded the card catalog as a marvelous invention. Younger readers who come across The Card Catalog today may be amused by this quaint and somewhat abstruse fixture of “pre-historic” libraries. The thought of having to actually go to the library and manually search through file drawers of alphabetized 3 x 5 cards will strike them as a laughably inefficient, time-wasting convention. Indeed it was by modern standards. Older readers, on the other hand, may recall the forerunner of today’s digital catalog with a sense of nostalgia and possibly even affection. The Card Catalog is a short history of the systems that have been used to keep track of the contents of libraries. The narrative describes, step by step, the developments that led from the use of clay tablets to record information around 2000 B. C. to our present system. At 213 pages The Card Catalog doesn't require a significant investment of time; a rainy afternoon will suffice. The content is organized into five chapters. Each begins with a few pages describing significant advances in cataloging methods and the shortcomings of that method that motivated the continued search for a better system. The treatment is brief enough that what many might perceive as a rather esoteric topic doesn't become boring. Following the brief introduction each chapter includes illustrative reproductions of artifacts of the system. In the eighteenth century, for example, playing cards were used and examples depicting works by Aristotle, Homer, and Shakespeare are reproduced. Moby Dick, Little Women, and Stories of Jesse James and Buffalo Bill are included to illustrate the early twentieth century. Readers will delight at the selection of popular works and revered classics represented in the volume. The book also contains photographs of early library facilities, cabinetry used to store cards, and individuals who were instrumental in the development of cataloging systems. One disappointing aspect is the poor quality of many of the reproductions. I suppose the authors were striving for authenticity but I doubt The Card Catalog was written for historians. Including one or two unenhanced illustrations would have sufficed to give interested readers an understanding of the stage of preservation. Retouching the remaining entries to increase their legibility would have placed less strain on my aging eyes.

[bookmarque · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am old enough to have used a card catalog during the whole of my education. We actually had classes when I was young on how to use the library, the catalog and the microfiche. Even though digital catalogs are easier, more up-to-date and faster, there’s something wonderful about a physical card catalog. It’s the tactile quality of actually discovering something. Reading the tracks left by another person for you to find a book you might love or at least learn something from.The history of the catalog is a reasonably interesting one and fraught with humans fighting over really dumb stuff. The very fact that bound catalogs were de rigeur for so long speaks to this. The instant the thing is bound it is obsolete. The very nature of a growing collection of objects renders it so and while the idea itself of using something small, portable and most of all sortable, isn’t French, the French were the first to exploit the medium. And they did it with playing cards! Suits and all. Fabulous.Interspersed with the story of the card catalog (and the Dewey decimal system, which if you think about it is brilliant) are photos of actual cards in all their quirky glory. I had no idea that so many were handwritten and in Library Hand no less. Library Hand is a writing style strictly defined as to letter size, shape and even the slant. It’s really beautiful to look at and remarkably easy to read. If you’ve been taught how that is. If you’re a kid these days it might as well be hieroglyphs. Along with the cards are the books or artifacts that go with them such as a collection of Emily Dickinson poetry with a cover featuring Indian Pipe, my favorite wildflower. And speaking of covers, what’s with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Now that’s deceptive advertising. I had a little sizzle of personal connection among the treasures of the Library of Congress - they have a folio by Pierre-Joseph Redoute who made the most amazing botanical prints in the 1800s. I have a set of reproductions that I frame and hang on my walls.Alas I don’t actually have a card catalog - the physical piece of furniture. There are a few scattered among the shelves at one of my local libraries and I so want to buy it or steal it and bring it home. Many of these oak cabinets were sold off in the 1990s as the electronic catalog (and the MARC record, invented by a woman) gained popularity. People often think librarians are staid and stodgy, but they embraced the electronic catalog very quickly because it was more fluid and easier to update and find information. But there are treasures there in the cards. Funny notes and bits of information that individual catalogers and librarians thought important enough to include. Some cards were actually multiples and extend to a dozen or more! It helped bring the Library of Congress to the people instead of being a private collection for Senators. As a matter of fact, it seems to have been progressive for its time - there’s a photo from the 1940s near the beginning of a bunch of people at a long table doing research and in the crowd is a black man and many women. All learning and discovering together, the way it should be.

[paradoxosalpha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well, here's a book that made me feel old. Knowing that most people under the age of 30 have never used a card catalog makes me sad for some reason. It's not the world's most glamorous or sophisticated technology, but this book highlights its charm quite vividly. I was still using card catalogs at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in Austin as recently as 1995, and I remember how thrilling it was to find their provenance catalog and the discoveries that led to. I catalog my own library with the online database of LibraryThing, although as a teenager I did build a card catalog to manage my then-growing considerable comic book collection.This materially-beautiful volume The Card Catalog supplies a fairly full history of the Library of Congress itself (at least for its first century or so), in support of its more particular study of the library's card catalog, and the library's eventual mission to support cataloging at local libraries across the US. As the text explains, the Library of Congress was actually one of the last major collections in the US to adopt the card cataloging system, but when they did so, it transformed library cataloging nationwide. I was fascinated by trivia such as the French origin of library catalog cards in the repurposing of playing cards, and the features of the "library hand" in which American catalogers were trained for creating cards in manuscript. I was also gratified to find out that the physical card catalog of the Library of Congress, while retired, has been retained. As explained and amply demonstrated in this book, there is valuable information in the cards that did not make it into the MARC records created by a private vendor from the card catalog in the 1980s. The visible emendations to a card show change in the status of a given book (promotion from second to "official" copy, for example), details of changes between editions, and developments in metadata such as the addition of an author's date of death.There are many full color reproductions from catalogs that preceded the card catalog, and over half of the book consists of pictures of cards from the catalog, accompanied by photos of the actual books (or other media objects) and often portraits of the authors. The fact that The Card Catalog is thus itself a secondary product of the catalogers who worked in the Library of Congress is evidently why writer and editor Peter Devereaux gave the book's byline to the institution itself, crediting on the cover Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden with the foreword, and effacing his own role--showing it only in his subscription to the introduction.I enjoyed reading this book far more than I expected to. I recommend it to both the curious and the nostalgic, and I'm glad that it exists to help document this increasingly ghostly element of information science.

[indygo88 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful eye candy for any bibliophile. While this book does go into explicit detail about the history of the card catalog -- both its rise and fall, the real treasure here are the photos throughout the book. It's filled with images of vintage book covers and lots of actual card catalog cards, as well as historical figures & drawings. It's a trip down memory lane for us older folks and a perfect book to read and browse through in a comfy chair with a blanket and cup of coffee, tea, or glass of wine. A feel-good book in the non-traditional sense.

[michaelg16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A real trip down memory lane for me, this volume is a nicely presented but not quite scholarly attempt to retrieve a certain kind of book history. I gave my copy to my local library and they were delighted!