Index card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Index card
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An index card (or system card in Australian English) consists of heavy paper cut to a standard size, used
for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. It was invented by Carl Linnaeus,[1] around 1760.[2]
The most common size for index cards in North America and UK is 3 by 5 inches (76.2 by 127.0 mm), hence the
common name 3-by-5 card. Other sizes widely available include 4 by 6 inches (101.6 by 152.4 mm), 5 by 8
inches (127.0 by 203.2 mm) and ISO-size A7 (74 by 105 mm or 2.9 by 4.1 in). Cards are available in blank,
ruled and grid styles in a variety of colors. Special divider cards with protruding tabs and a variety of cases and
trays to hold the cards are also sold by stationers and office product companies. They are part of standard
stationery and office supplies all around the globe.
Index cards are used for a wide range of applications and environments: in the home to record and store recipes,
shopping lists, contact information and other organizational data; in business to record presentation notes,
project research and notes, and contact information; in schools as flash cards or other visual aids; and in
academic research to hold data such as bibliographical citations or notes. An often suggested organization
method is to use the smaller 3-inch-by-5-inch cards to record the title and citation information of works cited,
while using larger cards for recording quotes or other data. Index cards are used for many events and are helpful
for planning.
Until the digitization of library catalogs, which began in the 1980s, the primary tool used to locate books was the
card catalog, in which every book was described on three cards, filed alphabetically under its title, author, and
subject (if non-fiction). Similar catalogs were used by law firms and other entities to organize large quantities of
stored documents. However, the adoption of standard cataloging protocols throughout nations with international
agreements, along with the rise of the Internet and the conversion of cataloging systems to digital storage and
retrieval, has made obsolescent the widespread use of index cards for cataloging.

History
Using cards to create an index was the brainchild of 18th-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who is known as "the
father of modern taxonomy" for his work on categorizing species. He needed a system for organizing data that
was expandable and able to be rearranged easily, so he kept each datum on individual sheets and could add new
sheets and reorganize simply.
Card catalogs as currently known arose in the 19th century, and Melvil Dewey standardized the index cards
used in library card catalogs in the 1870s.
In the late 1890s, edge-notched cards were invented, which allowed for easy sorting of data by means of a
needle-like tool. These edge-notched cards were phased out in the 1980s in favor of computer databases, and
they are no longer sold.
Vladimir Nabokov wrote his works on index cards, a practice mentioned in his work Pale Fire. [3]

See also

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Index card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2 of 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_card

Edge-notched card
Hipster PDA
Paper sizes
Punched card
Rolodex

Literature
Markus Krajewski: Paper Machines. About cards & catalogs, 1548-1929. MIT Press, Cambridge 2011,
ISBN 978-0-262-01589-9

References
1. ^ Carl Linnaeus Invented The Index Card (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616080137.htm)
ScienceDaily, June 16 2009
2. ^ Staffan Mller-Wille, Sara Scharf Indexing Nature: Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) and his Fact-Gathering Strategies
(http://www2.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/pdf/FACTSPDF/3909MuellerWilleScharf.pdf) University of Exeter &
University of Toronto, 2009, p. 4
3. ^ Gold, Herbert. "Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40" (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews
/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov). The Paris Review. Retrieved 7 April 2013.

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