No library history exhibit would be complete without check out cards. Hannah Mabry Wang, LHRT’s Social Media Coordinator and Metadata Specialist at the Sturgis Library of Kennesaw State University, contributed this artifact which belonged to her grandfather (address blocked out). We can see what library cards looked like in the 1970s, laminated and without the ubiquitous bar codes of cards today.

Hannah writes that “these photos are the front and back of a library card for the Atlanta Public Library, now Fulton County Libraries, circa 1974. This was the library card of Leonard Mabry of the Roswell Mabrys. At the time, the Alpharetta Library was in the basement of the now-demolished city hall on the corner of Hwy 9 and Academy Street in Alpharetta, before it moved to its second location on Canton Street in 1989. In 2015, the third Alpharetta Library location was built and is in full operation off of Haynes Bridge Road and Hwy 9.”

Update September 10, 1024: Hannah has also compiled a collection of photos that she explains “make up almost the entire history of Atlanta and Fulton County Public Libraries card history (missing the 80s decade).” Assistant Branch Manager, Michael Salpeter from the Alpharetta Branch Library, has a collection of the cards. We thank them both for helping expand the Virtual Museum! From this history one can see the progression through the early stages of internet towards the era of social media, as well as the series of rebranding undertaken by the library and Fulton County. Check out the photos below:

Read more about the lifeblood of library circulation systems on ALA’s History of Library Cards libguide. Larry Nix offers a display of vintage library cards, many of them referred to as “tickets”, on the Library History Buff.