Richard D. Johnson was on the staff of Meyer Library when it opened, and was an integral part of the team that worked on the cutting edge catalog system for the Undergraduate Library.

In 1964 Rudy Rogers invited me to become head of the Undergraduate Library Project, a three-year assignment. ... The library decided to employ the latest edition of Dewey for the undergraduate library, the thought being that the main library would switch to LC with the undergraduate library¹s classification being more user friendly. ... At the same time the library decided we would not have a card catalog but multiple copies of a computer-produced book catalog located throughout the library. The library sent me to multi-week courses at the IBM training center in San Francisco so that I might be better acquainted with the required operations for a computer-produced catalog. The university had in the business office an IBM 1401 computer, which we were to use. This, of course, was before the days of the MARC record and OCLC.

Florida Atlantic University was doing the pioneering work in automation, and I, along with several staff, visited there for a briefing on their progress. ... Just as we were getting ready for our trip to Florida and FAU, we learned that the university library committee was so impressed by the library¹s proposal to begin using LC they urged that the undergraduate library also use the same classification. On the flight to Florida, I began studying the layout of the LC classification and how we would set up the fields in the computer record.

On our return to Stanford, we began reclassifying the books already done in Dewey and started to use LC. As we began, it turned out the undergraduate library project was actually ahead of the main library in use of LC, and we had to work closely with Jennette Hitchcock and her cataloging staff to ensure we were using the same numbers. (I remember one place in the Bs where LC had recently introduced a revision of the classification, and numbers we took from LC cards were obsolete. Jennette had to advise me: start over and use the new classification.)

At this stage in automation there were no CRT terminals, and records were entered via the key punch. To indicate a capital letter or a diacritical mark we needed to punch an extra symbol, called a word separator character. Trying to read the printed characters on top of each card was just about impossible; so Jerry prepared a proofing program, and we proofed the entries reading against the original typed cards. Printing of the catalogs was a lengthy endeavor (something in the magnitude of 18 hours), with each page printed from two tapes -- one tape printing the left column and the other the right column. Briefing Richard Pollard (who took over supervision of Meyer Library cataloging at the project¹s conclusion), I took him over to the business office to watch the printing operation. As we inspected the pages coming off the printer, I discovered the tapes were reversed with the right column on the left and left on the right. All I could do was alert a supervisor and then get out of there quickly. I didn¹t want us to witness how the problem was being addressed.

By the library¹s opening in the fall of 1966, we had the initial collection in place and book catalogs printed (red binding), with supplements issued throughout the year, and a second edition in 1967 (tan binding). If I remember correctly, we were $28,000 over budget, a minuscule amount compared to new projects, and the university covered it nicely.

Working on the undergraduate library project was the most rewarding job I had in my entire professional career. I remember it with great fondness and a sense of real achievement. I certainly remain grateful to Rutherford Rogers, Elmer Grieder, and David Weber for the opportunity they gave me.

The bound catalog books are a thing of the past. However, the efforts of Richard Johnson and his staff laid the foundation for today's online catalog. And Meyer Library is still making innovative technologies available to library users. It is home to several computer clusters, a multimedia studio, and a digital language lab.