Originally developed by French librarians in the late 1700's, playing cards, which were blank on side at the time, were used to record bibliographic information. Melvil Dewey instructed librarians to write "letters upright with as little slant as possible…writing in uniform size blackness of lines, slants, spacing, and forms of letters…avoiding any ornament." As early as 1904, librarians could be heard voicing concern over the enormous size and time consuming nature of the card catalog. It was not until the 1980's that libraries began converting their holdings to an electronic format. Today, with the ease of on-line storage and retrieval systems, the once tangible catalog of cards is near extinct. Most card catalogs have been discarded…and the cards sadly used for scrap. in association with: One-Eared Rabbit Press forresla@buffalostate.edu © 2005