I worked for large Maryland libraries from 1969 on, and we switched from card catalog to various forms of microfilm in the 1970s. Converted to a clunky computer system in the later 1970s. It was actually intended for check out and check in , but librarians (mostly my husband and me but others chimed in too) insisted it would be very useful for librarians to quickly find things for our customers , so librarians were 'allowed' to use it.
The first computer system was sooooo slow compared to today, but so much quicker than flipping microfilm back and forth. (a single modern web page uses more bytes than our whole computer catalog used in those days.)
It was years before libraries could afford to install computers for library customers. At first librarians held classes in computer use. Later on a lot of libraries had 'computer volunteers ' who would come in and help computer newbies learn how to use them.
1 comment:
Hi, Wendie! I had the librarian door slammed in my face by the recession of the early 1970s and by moving to a town where there wasn't day care for infants because the day cares all wanted the kids potty-trained. Sigh. So I missed out on the transition to computers in libraries, and the transition from Library Science to Information Science. There was talk about computers in libraries when I was in library school (1969-1970), but at the time, it was pretty much pie in the sky.
Post a Comment