5 ms·

Ask HN: How libraries managed borrowed books before computers?

• DougMellon 4y ago
  Books had a pocket glued onto the fly page. The pocket contained a card with the book name on it. When you borrowed the book, the librarian removed the card and wrote your membership number on it, and retained the card. The “return by” date was stamped on the pocket. The book you were checking out had a little pocket glued to the inside of the cover that held a card with the book name on it. The librarian would write your number on the card and placed it in their filing system. They would then write or stamp the due date on the pocket of the card. https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/library-book-due-date-grunge-picture-id172189245 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/library-book-due-date-g...
  • rahimnathwani 4y ago
    When I first started using the local library (Balham Library, in London), about 40 years ago, I recall: - the book had that paper thing with dates stamped on it - I think there was a pocket, but that the librarian emptied the pocket before handing me the book - the librarian scanned a barcode on both the book and on my library card, during checkout (using a pen-like scanner) Perhaps I'm mixing memories from different times. Or perhaps I joined the library soon after it was computerized. Perhaps the backend was computerized but they still did the date stamp thing because that was the only way I'd know when the book was due back.
    • apohn 4y ago
      >Perhaps I'm mixing memories from different times. Or perhaps I joined the library soon after it was computerized. I think I experienced this as well, just in a different country. There was probably no email or website for a patron to check when a book was due so they stamped it. My memory of this is pretty hazy as well.
  • apohn 4y ago
    >They would then write or stamp the due date on the pocket of the card. One of my small joys as a younger person was discovering a book I was looking at hadn't been checked out for a long time. Seeing a 10 year old due date stamp, or better, a book that had been in the library for a long time that had never been checked out, just gave me a small burst of joy.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • stonecharioteer 4y ago
      I've had this. Such a good feeling. Like finding a forbidden book.
  • Tomte 4y ago
    And I still remember my mom's membership number (at the time I did not have my own membership card), because it just happened to be our postal code.
• PopAlongKid 4y ago
  I can provide part of the answer for libraries, but my memory is sketchy. I worked in a major university (U.S.) library in the 1970s. Each book had a paper card in a sleeve glued into the inside back cover (or was it the front? doesn't matter). The card had the author, title, and filing number (Library of Congress system) and some indication if it was one of several copies in the collection. (These were mirrored by an identical card in the main card catalog). When a student or faculty member checked out the book, we had a photocopy machine that recorded the book card info and the user's photo ID. The current date was on there too. The photocopy output was maybe 3-in by 8-in (not full size sheet) and was on a stiff type of paper. I distinctly remember using a manual sorting device at the end of the day to alphabetize the photocopies -- it was a narrow board maybe 2-ft long, with plastic flaps for the letters of the alphabet, so one could easily slide the photocopies under the correct letter of the alphabet (by author last name, as I recall). So, if someone could not find a book on the shelf, it was fairly easy to find who had it checked out and send them a recall notice, if they had checked it out sufficiently long ago. I do not recall whether or how routine overdue notices were sent (maybe there was a policy that you could keep the book out until recalled or the end of the current term, whichever came first -- renewals were also possible). I wish I could remember more details. I spent more time working in the stacks area (supervising the re-shelving of returned books) than at the circulation desk. I was also there when the first pass at computerization was done - we had to manually affix barcodes to every book as it was re-shelved, with the same barcode on the card in the book, for adding to the database. Once books were barcoded, the circulation became computerized, as I believe the user IDs also had barcodes -- no more photocopies and no more manual alphabetizing. This was pretty novel at the time, we even had T-shirts made with a large barcode symbol as the graphic on the T-shirt, I don't remember if it had a funny caption or not.
  • PopAlongKid 4y ago
    My library had a million or more books as I recall, on seven floors total. A typical community library would be a tiny fraction of that, so systems for small local libraries may have been more simple, and more labor intensive.
• lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Many descriptions of old systems here: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-track-of-who-borrowed-what-before-computers/159488/22 https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-libraries-keep-tra...
• perilunar 4y ago
  “How did ‘X’ work before computers?” Recently I saw someone ask how vinyl records were ‘decoded’. It’s good that young people are asking these questions, but it does feel odd to be part of the last generation to have grown up in the pre-digital age.
  • yababa_y 4y ago
    directly transducing energy from physical configuration into analog output is one of the great tricks that you don’t encounter unless you get exposed to mechanical systems. is there any analog in digital systems of similar effects? maybe some code as data conflation.
  • 2143 4y ago
    > It’s good that young people are asking these questions Yes it's good that they're eager to learn. Just yesterday (in my timezone atleast — perhaps earlier today for you) somebody effectively wondered how websites work without having something similar to a json call from the frontend [1]. I predict that within 75 years people will wonder how the hell we came up with internal combustion engines, which on first glance is incredibly complex. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32277318 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32277318