Miss Agnes Ryan using the automatic charging machine while checking out a book to patron L.R. Cody. Miss Ida-May Berkshire, another staff member, is filing book cards.
February, 1933 – The first “Automatic Charging Machines” were installed at the loan desks. The Santa Clara County Library was the first in the State of California to install machines to relieve the workload of librarians and to increase efficiency. “This robot stamps the borrower’s number and the date on the book card… The book card that it stamps is filed at the Library and amounts to a receipt from the customer for the volume he is taking away with him.” (Mercury News, Oct 9, 1948)