Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Card Catalogue

Card Catalogue

c. 1880s

The card catalogue fills the wooden cabinets that run through the centre of the Mitchell Reading Room. The drawers contain thousands of handwritten cards listing the bibliographic details of the books, maps, pamphlets, magazines, news cuttings, scrapbooks, playbills, theatre programs, menus and sheet music in the Mitchell Library.

Before electronic digital catalogues, card catalogues were used to locate specific material on the shelves in a library. The State Library moved to an electronic catalogue digital archiving system in 1980, and as a result, additions to the card catalogue stopped.

The cards are filed alphabetically by author or subject, and where possible list the date, title, publisher and description. Each of these cards carries a special number based on the Dewey decimal classification system, which was developed by American Melvil Dewey in 1876. The Dewey system classifies all books by subject, and places like subjects together on the shelf.

This card catalogue is also known as a dictionary catalogue.

During the 1800s the Library kept its catalogue in various books and ledgers. The Mitchell Library, which opened in 1910, has always used a card catalogue.

Many children and school students visiting the library today are intrigued by the card catalogue as it is something that most have not come across before.

The manuscript catalogue was at first not open for public consultation. Librarians checked it for readers – this was in part because of the potential embarrassment which might be caused if a convict ancestor was inadvertently revealed.