WASHINGTON — It probably arrived in the Washington Community High School library in the 1950s or 1960s, at a time when every library had to have one. But it hadn't been used for its intended ...

But now, the final toll of the old-fashioned reference system ... writes Gearino, the school’s library only uses its card catalog as a backup for its computerized one.

The Library of Congress ... over the tactility of physical catalogs and the browsing that they inspired. Today, some of them are turning old, abandoned card catalogs into art projects.