Productivity site 43 Folders has turned up a 2005 article from MIT’s Technology Review on two of the most elemental innovations in office technology: the tab (as in a tabbed folder) and the index card.
In Keeping Tabs, Ed Tenner delivers some excellent trivia:
…In 1876, Melvil Dewey, inventor of decimal classification, helped organize a company called the Library Bureau, which sold both cards and wooden cases. An academic entrepreneur, Dewey was a perfectionist supplier. His cards were made to last, made from linen recycled from the shirt factories of Troy, NY. His card cabinets were so sturdy that I have found at least one set still in use, in excellent order. Dewey also standardized the dimension of the catalogue card, at three inches by five inches, or rather 75 millimeters by 125 millimeters. (He was a tireless advocate of the metric system.)
Even the Library Bureau did not offer a convenient way to separate groups of cards, apart from thin metal partitions that wrapped around them, or taller cards. The tab was the idea of a young man named James Newton Gunn (1867–1927), who started using file cards to achieve savings in cost accounting while working for a manufacturer of portable forges. After further experience as a railroad cashier, Gunn developed a new way to access the contents of a set of index cards, separating them with other cards distinguished by projections marked with letters of the alphabet, dates, or other information. …
The Library Bureau also produced some of the first modern filing cabinets, proudly exhibiting them at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Files had once been stored horizontally on shelves. Now they could be organized with file folders for better visibility and quicker access. Tabs were as useful for separating papers as for organizing cards. Since business people were unfamiliar with the new technology, Library Bureau staff provided consulting services as well as equipment and supplies.
Read the rest for a nice overview of index card and tab technology. (And when was the last time you thought of either of those as technologies?)
(Photo courtesy of Lars Aronsson, under a Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License.)
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This is the nerdiest thing I have ever read. I absolutely love it.
posted by Rachel on 7-23-2008 at 6:19 pm
Even though I am a direct service worker in a homeless shelter I do have a clerical aspect to my job. One of my duties on the overnight shift is to record the attendance for up to 200 homeless people each night. We do not have a computer so I mark each person that is present on cards which I keep alphabetically in file boxes. I shudder to imagine what my task would be like if card tabs had not been invented. You never think of something that is so pervasive and useful as having been invented. Thanks for letting me know who to be grateful to.
posted by Cynthia on 7-23-2008 at 9:06 pm
I’m with Rachel. And, to answer your question (when was the last time you thought of either of those as technologies?), never.
posted by adrienne on 7-23-2008 at 11:32 pm
I was just thinking as I was reading this article that it’s hard to believe someone actually got these ideas out there into the public (i.e. wow, this is technology?). When I come up with knew ways of making my job easier, I don’t think about telling others. I generally figure it won’t help anyone else. I should begin to rethink that . . .
Awesome article, Higgins.
posted by nutmeag on 7-24-2008 at 7:31 am
Incredible article – thanks for the info! Since a part of my job now is to oversee a cadre of file clerks, I found myself wondering if perhaps it’s still possible to have consultants come out and provide training on that pesky alphabetical order thing.
posted by Roger on 7-24-2008 at 7:48 am
I’m amused that filing cabinets once came with consultants to show you how to use them…
Now if only online/digital library catalogs could be as easy to use as the old card cabinets (which make excellent home decorating objects de arte). Of course, I’m the daughter of a librarian, so I may be a bit biased.
posted by Lindsey on 7-24-2008 at 9:17 am
Wikipedia’s Index_card article lacks a History section, so this is a plea for Help from an Expert! An anecdote for which I have no reference goes back to the era when IBM leased computers to companies, many of which went bankrupt long before IBM recovered its costs. Analysis of the problem disclosed that too many employees had been juggling way too many computer printouts to get profitable work done. Analysts determined that, with fewer than 500 employees, companies were better off using well-designed forms (and index cards.) IBM promptly bought a forms company, lock, card-stock, and barrel, to solve the problem. (Juggling voluminous print-outs was not the sole cause of US defeat in Vietnam, but it certainly contributed.)
posted by Pawyi Lee on 2-6-2009 at 1:21 am
Help! Wikipedia’s article Index_card lacks a History section! I posted a request there for Expert Attention, linked this blog to its Discussion page, and am now appealing here. An anecdote from IBM’s history for which I have no cite: When IBM leased out main-frames, many companies flocked to get them. Many smaller companies then went bankrupt before IBM recovered its costs. They subsequently determined too many employees spent too much time juggling reams of computer print-outs, at the expense of the bottom line. IBM determined that companies with fewer than 500 employees benefited more from a few well-designed forms than from a main-frame spewing reams of print-outs, so bought out a maker of forms, lock, card-stock and barrel. Form sales contributed only trivial amounts to IBM’s bottom line, but loses from busted leases declined significantly. (Juggling mountains of printouts did not cause the US to lose its war in Vietnam, but did make a significant contribution.)
posted by Pawyi Lee on 2-6-2009 at 3:18 am