Mechanization in libraries and information retrieval: punched cards and microfilm before the widespread adoption of computer technology in libraries

Abstract

In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries a range of important new technologies of information emerged in response to the growth and increasing complexity of organizations and their operations. One such technology was the punched-card machine, a direct forerunner of the computer in terms of the information management function in organizations. Punched-card technology first appeared in libraries in the 1930s, in the United States; and was taken up by libraries in the United Kingdom after the Second World War. Although it could be found in public libraries, the technology's greatest take-up appears to have been in special libraries and documentation/information centres. In the 1930s and 1940s, anticipating later developments in online services, ideas were put forward to link microfilm and punched-hole technologies to produce machines for rapid and universal information retrieval. However, in the 1950s these ideas became redundant with the deployment of the first computers in organizations, a development which also led to the demise of punched-card machines in library operations.