NATIONAL CARD INDEX

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 20

NATIONAL CARD INDEX

What; is ■ said to the largest indexing job ever attempted is now in progress in New York, says the "Manchester Guardian." The entire 1920 population Census of the United States is being transferred from its original volumes to.the latest thing in alphabetical" card indexes. The records of 105,000,000 persons are being inscribed on over 57,000*000 cards, and the task is providing employment for 3600 "white-collar" workers, recruited by the Works Progress Administration in connection with the New Deal. It will take them eighteen months and Will cost not far short of £1,000,000. It will pay for itself, however, for it is estimated that it will save the Census Bureau not less than £50,000 a year. The information given in the volumes hitherto used is not arranged alphabetically but remains in the form in which it was originally sent in by the house-to-house canvassers. Consequently, every search for particulars of a single name takes from two days to a week, at a cost of from two to five dollars. When the card index is. available it will require only three minutes and cost only a few cents. The need for an' improved method has become urgent owing to the great increase in requests^ for information that have come to the Census Bureau since the passing of the, old age pension legislation; there are also numerous appli-, cations from insurance companies and other organisations.