Two of the city library’s old card catalogs have been brought out of storage, repurposed for Hayward’s new seed lending library. It turns out that the wooden file cabinets are the perfect size ...

Norwell Public Library has an old card catalog cabinet that is used to hold seed packets for a seed-lending program. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/Globe Staff ...

Today, people use the antique wooden cabinets to store their knick-knacks. But these card catalogs once held the keys to a world of information. A new Library of Congress book explores their history.

At Library Bureau, the Massachusetts company that made some of the UW's card catalogs, sales of the wooden files have fallen sharply since the early 1990s. It sold thousands annually during the ...

The library put midcentury and vintage couches, chairs, tables and a handful of wooden library card-catalog cabinets on the market for browsing shoppers.