The Olin Library card catalog is officially history. No longer will researchers need to browse through some 3,000 catalog drawers holding 1.9 million 3x5 index cards to find the library's earlier holdings.

After 32 years of converting the cards into digital records, the online catalog is complete, and represents every one of Cornell Library's estimated 6 million titles and 7.5 million volumes.

In 1974, the library began entering new acquisitions into an electronic system known as the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) that served, ironically, only as an automated card-printing system. It took a few years to realize that once the information was in digital form there was no point in actually printing out a card. In 1988 Cornell librarians stopped printing cards and went live with the first online catalog, which included a warning to check the card catalog for books acquired prior to 1974.

In the mid-'90s the catalog drawers containing the cards were moved to the basement of Olin Library to make room for more computer terminals. Cards that had been added since 1974 and that duplicated records in the online catalog were removed.

Converting the pre-1974 cards into online records proceeded in fits and starts, depending on the availability of funding and staff time, said Jim LeBlanc, head of database management services in Library Technical Services.

The work was time-consuming and often laborious. Every card was checked to see if an online record already existed in the OCLC (which now stands for the Online Computer Library Center) or one of several other databases, in which case the record was copied and local call number information added. Otherwise, the information from the card had to be keyed in. Incomplete information required a librarian to find the book in the stacks to create a proper record.

Some of the work was done by library staff, but much was contracted to outside vendors. Some grants supported the conversion of titles in a particular subject area, from Icelandic literature to ornithology to Cornelliana. To convert by subject headings the librarians worked from a behind-the-scenes copy of the card catalog indexed by shelf number, where all books on a given topic would be grouped together.

"Conversion proceeded pretty steadily for 32 years," said LeBlanc, "but during some periods the intensity was pretty low."

A few smaller libraries on campus still maintain specialized card catalogs, but the Olin card catalog will be removed from the basement over the coming winter break as part of a renovation project to create more study space, according to Barbara Eden, director of preservation and collection maintenance at Olin. The cabinets will be offered to other libraries.