Newark Circulation System

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Canterbury Municipal Library employed Newark - a manual Circulation System. On registration a patron was issued with a "Borrower's Card" with a unique number ("Borrower's Number") on the top. Each item in the Lending Collection was given a "bookcard" with a unique call number on the top right hand corner and the author and title on separate lines underneath. Below this information were four columns of ruled lines.

When a book was "issued" the bookcard was removed from the book and the patron's borrower's number was written on the bookcard and filed in a set of drawers called the "Count" under the date the item was due for return ("date due"). The date due was stamped in the book on the "date due slip".

The count was in effect a collection of bookcards for every book on loan. These bookcards where arranged by call number behind a fingerstall (a wooden sheet the shape of the bookcard with the date due extending above the pile of cards). Every morning the bookcards collected the previous day were counted and recorded in the "Statistics Book". When the items were returned the "carder" (person returning the bookcards to the books) checked the call number written on the top right hand corner on the inside of the cover opposite the date due slip on the front endpaper, and read the date due stamped in the book, and located the correct bookcard filed behind the relevant fingerstall (the one with the correct date due) and placed it in the pocket in the book (located behind the date due slip) ready for shelving.

Every morning the cards at the very back of the count (that is those for books not yet returned by the date due plus a grace period) were removed and an "overdue notice" was sent to the patron.