The Book
The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary
Treasures by the Library of Congress –
This book takes you through the history and
evolution of the card catalog. Apparently, people were attempting to catalog their books using cuneiform! And one early iteration used playing cards because of their uniform size and shape. This book was recommended to me by a friend of
mine who is a librarian. She was super excited about it. I can’t say that I was
quite as excited but it was really interesting. There are tons of pictures of
early catalog cards and original books covers for classic books. I'm using this book for my non-fiction book about technology for the Read Harder challenge.
The Experience
I recently purchased an old catalog cabinet from a lady on Craiglist. My kickass daughter helped me get it into the house. Praise the universe for whoever decided to put it on wheels, otherwise it would be an outdoor card catalog. I am in the process of refreshing the stain and glossing the drawers. I shoulda just left it as it was because it has 69 drawers! (three were broken, thank god)
The book definitely inspired me to keep working on my cabinet for a while longer when I was running out of steam. I’m looking forward to figuring out what the hell I’m going to do with it. So is hubbo.
I was one of those kids that loved reading, but avoided the card catalogue because it confused the heck out of me. I don't know why, but good lord, it did. I would rather just spend hours browsing instead.
ReplyDeleteMe, too!! It was some weird jumble of info. I never understood it.
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