Before the convenience of computers and online catalogs, there was the card catalog system: a card index organized in drawers that made it easy for librarians and patrons to find the location of a book, as well as materials pertaining to a certain subject.

An 1887 article from The Kansas City Star describes the laborious task undertaken by librarian Carrie Westlake Whitney and her two assistants, who hand-typed the names of 14,000 books onto each notecard.

To prepare, the Library was closed for a total of six months beginning in July of that year. In the words of Whitney, “The card catalog is the real key to the library shelves.” A decade later, Whitney and her team would take on a similar challenge: creating a card catalog for the library’s collection of Harper’s Weekly.

Established in 1857 in New York City, Harper’s Weekly was a political magazine known for its illustrations created by cartoonist Thomas Nast, who is considered the father of American political cartooning. The content focused on political campaigns and featured caricatures that criticized political figures.

The Missouri Valley Room houses the original card catalog for Harper’s Weekly created by Whitney. Each drawer contains dozens of cards, typewritten with the names of articles, their subject type, the author's names, and the call number.

Little knobs underneath the drawer handle control a metal rod from inside the drawer, and each card has a hole punched at the bottom, so that the rod can hold them in place. When turning the knob counterclockwise, the rod moves away from the back of the drawer, leaving space to insert more cards.

Read the rest of the story at KCHistory.org.