Yeah one could stumble on other interesting leads while looking thru the card catalog....
That's an aspect of the "new improved" library layout that I find most distressing; used to be, all fiction was shelved based strictly on the first 3 letters of the author's name. Now they have them in categories, then alphebetized. That irks the hell out of me, because in the old layout, I could find just all sorts of interesting reads that it wouldn't have occurred to me to look for -- it was lovely serendipity, to find a truly great book that you wouldn't have thought to look for, but just happened across, because it was next to an author you really liked.
That's pretty much how I found my favorite book of all time -- it was in a box of old paperbacks in my parents' attic, and I was out of books to read and just going nuts, trying to find something to read -- The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving. That book is the best book I've ever read, bar none -- a figure in the 10's of thousands, if my raw estimate is any guide.
And I think I found Jane Austen via the libary-serendipity, because her books were right next to some other author I loved at the time, and I'd heard of Pride and Prejudice, so I read it, and laughed my .... off so much that my mother asked what was so funny, and I said "Jane Austen," and she informed me that I was truly weird. But that's one of the funniest books ever written.
Andria