CARD INDEXING, Commercial, the adaptation of the principle of the modern library card catalogue to the multifarious uses of industrial, mercantile and commercial life. Following the practical American development and improvement of the various Old-World principles and rules laid down for the cata loguing of libraries, and the establishment after 1876 of library bureaus for furnishing standard supplies, it was speedily recognized that card systems for facilitating the record of the affairs of business life and their multitudinous details, were henceforth to be— as in the case of the telephone, the typewriting machine and acces sories — indispensable adjuncts to the equip ment of every well-appointed office, store, fac tory or institution throughout the world.
The invention of time and labor-saving sys tems and devices of all kinds speedily followed, and now, any branch of any kind of business, from the simplest to the most complex, can ad vantageously install and use a card system, and procure standard supplies of blank or special printed ruled forms with full information as to their application for the keeping of accurate records of all affairs in the most practical way.
The development of commercial card sys tems also led naturally to a corresponding and commensurate growth of office furniture, fix tures and accessories for their accommodation, which include: box tray and drawer cases for card indexes; various kinds of folders, guides, indexes, storage and binding cases for vertical files; indexed transfer cases for flat files, elastic or expanding filing and other cabinets for docu ment, check and mercantile reports, etc.; spe cially devised stands, tables, desks, etc.
For .classifying work by separating miscel laneous information—grouping information of the same kind together — no other method has been found to equal the card-index system, the impossibility of keeping different facts about the same business or profession recorded in a bound book with any degree of sequence or order being now universally recognized. The card indexing system has proved of especial advantage, and is now extensively utilized in the offices of government, state and municipal departments, of railroad, telegraph, telephone, electric light, gas and waterworks companies, real estate and trust corporations, building and loan associations, fire, life and accident insur ance companies, solicitors' and underwriters' agencies, benevolent societies, lodges, banks and other financial institutions, factories, wholesale commercial and mail order houses, publishers, advertising agencies, professional men, clergy men, lawyers, physicians, oculists, dentists, specialists, etc.
By means of the card index system, names, facts, figures of any description, recorded on cards of uniform size, are arranged alphabet ically, numerically, territorially, chronologically, or according to any suitably defined order in boxes, trays or drawers of cabinets of special design. Various plans, ranging from simple to complex, are used for special indexing. All, however, are transparently concise in arrange ment and of facile adaptation for reference. The most simple form of card-indexing is the alphabetical-subject plan in which the name is indexed alphabetically and the, subject indicated by different tab cards. In territorial card-in dexes, the names are first classified by states, with alphabetical guides for each city or com mercial community in the state, the cards bear ing the records of firms or individuals being filed back of the alphabetical guides. Chrono logical card-indexes are divided into monthly, daily and alphabetical sections, distinguished by different colored cards, and back of each monthly guide is arranged a set of blank daily guides, so that cards may be filed in advance for attention on any day of any month. Each card with its record has an individual existence in its relations to others of the system, and is always to be found in its place, notwithstanding the cumulative and expansive principle of the index, which allows cards to be added or with drawn as needed. Guide or signal cards of different colors with projecting edges or tabs facilitate the immediate finding of the card for rapid reference; the liberal use of these signal cards, carefully inserted in long lists of the same surnames, also obviates a considerable amount of handling and saves time, labor and the wear and tear of the cards.