Yep, I've used these a long time back when I was a microbiologist, for categorising bacteria. Using two rods meant you could do an AND search in one operation. Also, if you clipped the wrong hole, you could fix it with Sellotape. I can't remember what they were called though.
"Needle Card", "McBee Card", "Indecks", "E-Z Sort", "Cope-chat", "Keysort", "Flexisort", "Velom card", "Rocket card", "Slotted card" and variations on those all redirect to that article[1].
Fun to be reminded of them!