Spent 2 days hunting down a citation from a footnote with a typo, and the library's old card catalog is what cracked it

Skyler Schmidt · 2026-10-28T23:45:04.562196+00:00

I was helping my nephew with a history paper on the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and his teacher gave him a quote with a citation that had a misspelled author name, so every database came back empty. I burned almost 2 full days on Google Scholar and JSTOR before I thought to just walk into the county library downtown. A reference librarian named Dana pulled out a drawer of the old card catalog, which they still keep in the back, and found the actual book in about 15 minutes because the cards are filed by title, not author. Turns out our author's name had one extra letter in the citation, and the book was sitting in the closed stacks the whole time. Why does nobody tell you to try the physical catalog when the online search keeps failing? Also, does anyone know if most libraries will still let you request something from closed stacks without an appointment?

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Spent 2 days hunting down a citation from a footnote with a typo, and the library's old card catalog is what cracked it | Ask a Librarian - Librear