Card Catalogue Cabinet -library furniture-library management
This is perhaps the most important piece of equipment in a library used frequently by both the library staff and the library users. It is a unit of card-filing drawers designed specifically to hold library cards (7.5 x 122.5 cm) and equipped with holding rods. This cabinet (and drawers) may be of wood, steel or the newer plastic material which is finding increased acceptance. The units come in a range of sizes from four drawers upto as many as sixty. Although readymade metal cabinets, having drawers right from the floor level are available, for convenience and ease of use, the cabinets should be placed on stands (60 cm height), and the overall height of the cabinet should not be more than 1.5 m (eye level). This will accommodate six vertical rows of drawers of 12.8 (W) x 7.8 (H) x 40 (L) cm dimension. Each tray can hold about 1,000 cards of medium thickness. It is better to have modular cabinets, each having 24 or 30 drawers, than a monolithic unwieldy piece of furniture.