Discards?

I recently read the well-known article Discards by Nicholson Baker. Baker rightly bemoans that fact that we are losing valuable information/historical records if we just get rid of the cards. But what about other countries? Recently, I had the chance to talk to a missionary from Japan who told me that the seminary library where he works as a professor still has a card catalog and uses the Dewey Decimal System. I am not sure if this practice is true of Japan as a whole or if the seminary just can't afford the time/money it takes to put everything online. I want to do some more research on this for my own curiosity...maybe we are the only ones discarding.