How to use library card catalogs

Do you know how to use the card catalog in the library? Do you ask the librarian about a certain book or do you look for it yourself?

Look for the most important item in the library; the card catalog. It’s that beautiful walnut cabinet with the many drawers. it contains cards on every book that the library system owns.

How do you find a book in the library? The first step in finding a particular book in the library is by looking in the card catalog. The card catalog is a file cabinet containing cards. This is actually similar to the index of a book.

Every title owned in the library system is listed in the card catalog, and to make it even easier, each title has more than one card. A fiction book has one card with the author’s name on the top line, and another card with the title on the top line.

Factual books have at least three cards: an author card, title card, and a subject card. All the cards are filed alphabetically in the catalog, as in a dictionary.

The type of book and where to look for it on the shelves is indicated in the upper left-hand corner of every card. For non-fiction, there is the Dewey Decimal Classification number on the book spine, identical to the call number. Fiction books are shelved by the author’s last name.

Drawers on the University of Michigan Library card catalogs

Photo by University of Michigan Library

Library of Congress Reading Room (Open House)

00220: Afforestation – D/Afghanistan – A

Photo by Ted Eytan

Library card catalogs at Tulane University Library

Photo thanks to Tulane Public Relations

Wooden library card catalogs with brass handles

Photo by Megan Amaral

Close-up of a card catalog in Chattanooga

Photo by Steve Hankins of hankinsphoto.com

Card catalogs from Harvard Law Library

Photo from Mellydoll

Card Catalog, Burrow Library (1973)

Photo courtesy Ed Uthman

Sweet Briar College students standing by the library card catalog (1967)

“Card catalog card from 1985 from the Suffolk Cooperative Library System, New York