Mid 60s punch card checkout machine in library - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2021, 07:18:21 am
content: In March 1969 a new library opened where I was living at the time. Every book in the library had a small pocket in the back with a punch card approximately 3 inches wide and 4 inches high. Also your library membership card was a punch card. They would feed these cards through a machine at the checkout to record the loan details. The machines were about 2 foot cube with a slot in the top for the cards. Blue colour. They would click and clatter merrily as the cards went through. Does anyone know what these machines might have been?Edit -> changed date from ~1967 to March 1969.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2021, 05:20:58 pm
content: I've never seen anything like that. My local library used to record book checkouts on microfilm. Each book had a card in a pocket in the front and the librarian would stack the cards from the books you were checking out along with your library card and run them through a machine that photographed them on microfilm.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2021, 05:56:21 pm
content: I definitely remember such a system at my municipal public library:The machine would nibble out a bit of the edge on each pass, so that the next time the card would go into the machine slightly farther.The size of the nibble related directly to the printed date, etc. entered on that line.Before that, smaller libraries had the name of the patron hand-written in a cell on a non-mechanical card. One could check if any famous professor had borrowed the same book.

author: 25 CPS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2021, 02:04:13 am
content: The public library in Toronto where I grew up had something similar for patron's library cards which were perforated. They'd be fed into one slot on the machine and you could hear a heavy motor running and it'd violently slam the card through and spit it out another slot. I was very young when this system was replaced and I don't remember if the library books themselves had perf cards in them. I'll have to ask around and see if anyone else remembers if they did and if it was all of the libraries in Toronto or only some of the branches.I'm really curious about what the equipment and back end system was now.

author: rf-messkopf
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2021, 11:29:21 am
content: According to Wikipedia, the library of my Alma mater was the first in Germany to introduce an electronic catalog in the mid seventies, and I think they had electronic checkout systems even before that, also based on punch cards to record the loan details:https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A4tsbibliothek_Bielefeld. I'm too young to have seen these in action, but many old books still have the punch card in the back.Some searching turns up a number of books published during that time, on the systems they used and their operating experience:http://d-nb.info/801012406http://d-nb.info/760146764http://d-nb.info/730085007http://d-nb.info/840572131From the title of one of these I reckon that they changed to barcodes in 1976.Unfortunately no electronic access , so I would have to wait until I'm near a larger library, or use inter-library loan from here. It would be interesting to take a look. I vaguely remember some old pictures of the systems that were published somewhere, and I believe they were made by Nixdorf. That manufacturer actually was located in a neighboring city.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2021, 01:55:40 pm
content: Some library automation equipment made by Olivetti was installed in a library on the other side of town at about the same time. That's all I've found so far. It's detailed in a paper titled "A computer-controlled charging system at Essendon Public Library" but is not easily accessible.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2021, 06:19:42 pm
content: Here' an entire volume of theIEEE Annals of the History of Computingdedicated to the early use of computers and punched cards in libraries:https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2002/02.One article in that voume is: Williams, R. V. (2002), The use of punched cards in US libraries and documentation centers, 1936-1965. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 24(2), 16–33. doi:10.1109/mahc.2002.1010067.Most of it is behind a paywall, however. Pay, ignore, or use Scihub to taste...