Gone are the days of using the paper card catalog; however, I found the remains of ours behind the stage. I love the way the furniture itself looks so I decided to reuse one for an organizer for supplies. My student helpers cleaned out the old cards. There were cards from the 1950s and 1960s. They thought it was so strange. I remember using the card catalog and I'm not THAT old, but it goes to show you how quickly things change. We have to do our best to keep up.
Do you still have a card catalog somewhere in your school closet or back room?
One of the first things I did when I began my job as a media specialist was to get rid of the old card catalogs which were just taking up space. Everything was already in the computer database anyway. Kids today don't realize how hard it was to try and locate a book when someone was using the drawer you needed!
ReplyDeleteJulie Greller
http://www.jgreller.net/Teachers/index.html
A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet
Keep the cards and sell them on eBay or Etsy. There's a lot of crafters would love to remake nostalgic stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteI have two sets of small card catalog drawers/cases still. One is being used to prop up my circulation monitor and the other is on top of a filing cabinet in my work room. I've been using the cards themselves as scratch paper at our student computers.
ReplyDeleteI kept our smaller shelf list card catalog and put it on display in our "Archives Display". I created a poster that discussed the history of the card catalog so a curious student could read a bit about it. My archives have things like an accession stamper, heat labeling wand, 16mm film reel, etc. It's a nice way to share the history of libraries if you have space for it.
ReplyDeleteI boxed up several boxes of our old catalog cards and offer them as "index cards" for our formal Research Class students. It saves them some money and we get a little laugh out of making something old into something new!