Stopped by a library in Vermont last week that still has a dedicated card catalog room

I was visiting a small town near Burlington for a family thing and walked into their public library. They had this whole separate room off to the side with wooden drawers full of index cards for every book. The librarian told me they stopped adding new cards in 2012 but never got rid of the old system. People still come in and flip through it just for the experience. I spent maybe 45 minutes looking up random old books from the 1970s. Has anyone else run into a library that keeps something like this going?

2 comments

2 Comments

casey9432d ago

Oh, have you seen that documentary "The Card Catalog" on PBS? I caught it last year and it made me want to find one of these rooms so bad. There's something about flipping through those little drawers that feels like you're handling the actual history of a library, you know? I bet the smell in that room is amazing too, like old paper and wood polish. The librarian probably has a few favorite cards she shows people, maybe one with a handwritten note from a famous author who visited decades ago. Did you find any cards that had a bunch of dates stamped on them from the 80s? That's my favorite part, seeing how often a book got checked out back then.

scott.grace2d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, did I just admit I spent like 20 minutes in the back of our local library sniffing those old drawer handles? Cause yeah, that smell is half the appeal honestly. I found a card for some random 1980s sci-fi novel that had been checked out 47 times between 82 and 89, and it made me feel so nosy like I was reading someone's diary. The librarian caught me flipping through the R section and just smiled, said "you're not the first one to get lost in there." I think I'd trade my phone for one of those rooms if I could.