The Card Catalog

The Library of Congress. The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures. San Francisco: Chronicle. 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

The origin of the card catalog goes back to the cradle of civilization nestled in the fertile ground between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 

Description:

OK, so maybe not everyone's heart starts fluttering at the idea of a book about the development and intricacies of the library card catalog. But to me, The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures created by The Library of Congress is right up my alley. If the brief text doesn't grab you, there are a wide variety of photos of first edition book jackets with their historic catalog cards complete with original notations from librarians and evolving layout styles, making this book the perfect addition to any coffee table. Now if those enticements don't excite you, better stop reading now!

The original problem of the card catalog was how to organize millions of books in the Library of Congress (and other collections) so they could be systematically categorized and easily retrieved by readers. The answer evolved over many years as beautifully described in The Card Catalog. Starting with the first catalog, a list of titles found on a clay cuneiform tablet in 3000 BC, through the addition of title, subject, and authors to every papyrus scroll in the fabulous Library of Alexandria in 300 BC, the classification of items steadily modified and expanded to eventually provide electronic access to the 16 million books in today's Library of Congress.

Here are some other tidbits from the wonderful The Card Catalog to further fascinate you:

• The backs of ordinary playing cards were the first medium used in 1791 by the French Cataloging Code of 1791 to standardize the size of cards used in all French libraries;

• The Library of Congress was conceived and funded by President John Adams in 1800 to "purchase such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress" beginning with just 728 volumes and 3 maps which were ordered from a London book company. This original shipment of books came with a list of titles, the first Library of Congress catalog;

• After the British burned down the Library of Congress during the War of 1812, Congress restored the library by purchasing Thomas Jefferson's collection of 6,400 volumes. These were organized by Jefferson's unique cataloging subjects of Memory, Reason, Imagination, History, Philosophy, and Fine Arts, broken down into forty-four sub-categories;

• Charles Cutter in 1868 developed a standardized cataloging and individual card system for the Boston Athenaeum (as opposed to the list of titles bound in a single volume which was the practice currently used in the United States). Cutter's system became the basis for the Library of Congress classification;

• In 1899, the Library of Congress made their catalog information and cards available to all US libraries to encourage standardized cataloging nationwide (and save individual librarians from re-creating the same information in every location);

• The Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) was eventually developted to facilitate computerized access and simple updating of information, as well as prevent librarians and the public from drowning in the mass of cards mounting up in all libraries for growing collections. 

I could go on and on with similar gems. There's info about Melvil Dewey, the Supplies Department of the American Library Association (which furnished standardized card, wooden catalog cases, tables, chairs, and all things needed by libraries), the law that required publishers to send two copies of each book they print to the Library of Congress, etc. etc. Each page holds another breath-taking fact, photo, or representation of a historic book title and corresponding card.

While this book may not seem as fascinating to everyone as it does to me, it is definitely worth a look. The Card Catalog is clearly-written with brief text which is easily skim-able to flip through any era or just the historic photos). It is chock full of enough riveting history to capture the fancy of any person interested in the written word and how it came to be organized. Guaranteed.

Happy reading.

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hammer, Joshua. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts.

The creation of one of the world's premier libraries in Timbuktu, Mali; its destruction by Al Qaeda terrorists; and the efforts made to hide and preserve the books until a new library could be constructed. (previously reviewed here)