U-M libraries bid farewell to their card catalogs

Not all mediums of information are eternal at the University of Michigam. It's graduate library is getting rid of its card catalogs ...and maybe even its books one day in the future.

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Nothing lasts forever.

So it will be said about the University of Michigan Library's card catalogs when they are removed from their home in the bowels of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library on March 8.

Twelve and a half million volumes strong, the card catalog has been in disuse for more than 20 years, ever since the university established the MIRLYN electronic catalog in 1988.

By 1991, every book in the library system had been catalogued onto MIRLYN, and the card catalogs were a relic of the past.

"I'm sad to see them go," said Paul Courant, U-M's Dean of Libraries. "This is truly the end of an era. But it is time to move on."

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