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What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

washingtonpost.com

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Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#21

Post by Millennium »

greglindahl wrote: post #7

The thing we gained when we digitized a bunch of books is the ability to build new kinds of discovery engines, ones that don't just use the information on the card catalog cards: https://blog.archive.org/2016/02/09/how-will-we-explore-book... https://books.archivelab.org/dateviz/

The engines we build nowadays are still mostly based on indexed collections of metadata, just as the old card catalogs were. The innovation was in being able to create new kinds of cards, and then compile catalogs of them automatically from the books (or whatever data sources one cared to use). This is a very useful thing to be able to do, but I'm not sure it can really be called a new kind of discovery engine, just a faster one.

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#22

Post by philipkglass »

I remember card catalogs. Modern electronic search is far superior. If searching the card catalog at the public library is "truly democratic," so is searching an electronic index at the public library. You can even perform full-text searches for words that the card-preparer might not have noted -- a huge advantage when researching niche topics that don't get their own books.

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/searchAdvanced

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Advanced

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls?a=page;page=advanced

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#23

Post by dwe3000 »

While I agree with the sense I get in general that modern, digital catalogs are better for search than the older, analog catalogs, I feel it has gotten worse for myself, and possibly others like me exist, that were not looking for something specific. I enjoyed the discovery possible by browsing through a card catalog - with lots of information without having to walk and scan through the stacks like I was looking for something specific.

Improvements are always being made, but my memory of the first digital catalogs are that they were highly specific, so other than finding other books by a specifically searched for author, discovery was severely limited. I hated digital catalogs at first. And for many smaller libraries, I find walking through the stacks easier than trying to discover something via the digital catalog.

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#24

Post by greglindahl »

Millennium wrote: post #21
greglindahl wrote: post #7

The thing we gained when we digitized a bunch of books is the ability to build new kinds of discovery engines, ones that don't just use the information on the card catalog cards: https://blog.archive.org/2016/02/09/how-will-we-explore-book... https://books.archivelab.org/dateviz/

The engines we build nowadays are still mostly based on indexed collections of metadata, just as the old card catalogs were. The innovation was in being able to create new kinds of cards, and then compile catalogs of them automatically from the books (or whatever data sources one cared to use). This is a very useful thing to be able to do, but I'm not sure it can really be called a new kind of discovery engine, just…

The entire point of my discovery project was to NOT just use new kinds of card catalog cards, but to instead do discovery on individual sentences.

I think that new kinds of card catalog cards could also be pretty novel and interesting, for example I'd love to build a histogram of all of the dates seen in a book and include that in the card catalog card.

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#25

Post by pram »

galonk wrote: post #8

What an incredibly stupid article. The author is supposed to be talking about card catalogues, but then keeps talking about books and libraries. We're not getting rid of those, we're getting rid of card catalogues. Somehow I don't think we should force librarians to keep hand-writing or typing cards for every book, or deprive users of search functions, just for this idiot's BS Wes Anderson aesthetic.

Searching for books using analog cards just has a certain warmth and pleasing aesthetic which digital is tragically missing. - library hipster

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#27

Post by philipkglass »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

> A national card catalogue system was the original “search engine” — one that ... was truly democratic. I don't think I get how a digital library catalogue is less democratic than an analogue one? Is this just a poorly thought out and tossed off claim or is there something I'm missing.

Maybe the author never learned that governments and academic institutions still catalog books and offer online search tools for book collections free of advertising or profit motive. The lamentations seem to come from an alternate timeline where Amazon bought all the public libraries and shut them down to push more Kindle sales.

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#28

Post by aqsalose »

One problem with digital databases: What if the electricity goes out for a very long time? Or a nefarious hacker manages to destroy the database? (Or all librarians' terminals are locked by NotPetya...)

Library without catalog is, while not totally worthless, much more difficult to use.

The physical card catalog, like other paper-based archives, is more resistant to attacks. For it to be destroyed, you need to cause physical damage, like a giant flood or tornado or hit it with explosives.

See: https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/06/27/the-internet-as-existe...

I hope that at least the national libraries and archives will maintain physical backups for the worst-case scenarios.

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#29

Post by magic_beans »

losteverything wrote: post #4

Anyone remember taking Library Class? Learning card catalogue, Dewey decimal system, how to use microfiche, film strips, difference between fiction and non-fiction? Part of cycle: home ec, industrial arts and keyboarding (elec piano)

Yes. And this was in 1998. Feels ridiculously irrelevant. Just like my third grade teacher who was adamant that we would only ever be able to write in cursive and in black ink in high school, college, and the workplace, and that to write in manuscript with pencils was not something any respectable adult would do...

Re: What libraries lost when they threw out the card catalog

#30

Post by Millennium »

greglindahl wrote: post #24
Millennium wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engines we build nowadays are still mostly based on indexed collections of metadata, just as the old card catalogs were. The innovation was in being able to create new kinds of cards, and then compile catalogs of them automatically from the books (or whatever data sources one cared to use). This is a very useful thing to be able to do, but I'm not sure it can really be called a new kind of discovery engine, just…

The entire point of my discovery project was to NOT just use new kinds of card catalog cards, but to instead do discovery on individual sentences. I think that new kinds of card catalog cards could also be pretty novel and interesting, for example I'd love to build a histogram of all of the dates seen in a book and include that in the card catalog card.

It's a nifty technique, but I'm not sure it refutes my statement. You still have agents crawling the book to build an index of metadata by (in your experiment's case) subjects and years mentioned. You throw away the entries for subjects and years you're not searching for, because they're not needed for your specific problem, but that's an optimization. If you didn't do that, your agents would assemble what amounts to a fine-grained (and correspondingly large) card catalog of sentences, indexed by subject and year, which you could then search.
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