Time marches on.....

Hello All,

I observed an interesting article on the Library Stuff blog that I subscribed to last week. The link provided here: (http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-library-to-bid-farewell-to-card-catalogs/)describes the University of Michigan's removal of the card catalog system from the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library on March 8, 2010.

Paul Courant, the Dean of Libraries at U-M says " I'm sad to see them go. This is truly the end of an era." The major reason for the removal of the card catalogs is the need to make more efficient use of the space that the card catalog fills. "When the catalogs were first retired, we'd use them to fill in some blanks or correct mistakes in the electronic record. That was happening a few times a week at first. Then it became once a month. Nowadays it's only once a year, maybe, when we refer back (to the catalog).” According to Mr. Courant the building is filled with students all day and they need places to study.

The Michigan Digitization Project has made significant progress along with Google to digitize the university's entire collection. It seems that as time marches on technology will continue to change the way libraries function. Library Directors have to stay abreast of the changes in technology so that they can more efficiently serve their patrons. The University of Michigan's conversion to an electronic catalog only makes sense.