Last week (and part of the week prior) I was tasked with an interesting project: to create a representation of our full card catalog (author-title, subject, and shelflist) using the one remaining cabinet (60 drawers) and the hodge-podge of cards which had been salvaged. I believe the cabinet will be used for a display.
The first part of the task was to ensure the cards in the drawers were in the right drawers and were in order. This meant reading a wonderful little type-written manual from 1972 on the rules of filing in a Canadian card catalog using the Library of Congress system.
Next task was to fill in the blanks. Some of this could be done by stretching drawers out (we had 3 drawersful of author-title cards starting with H but few starting with I-L). Some had to be pulled out of thin air (there were no subject cards for letters C-H so I had to create them from cards among the remaining author-title and shelflist cards).
Finally, all the drawers had to be numbered and labelled appropriately. Fun Fun Fun! Actually, I am pretty happy with the finished result, and there are far worse ways for a library-geek like me to spend several hours.
3 comments:
Wow, card catalogue! I haven't seen one of those for many a long year. As a fellow library geek, I kind of envy you!
Suzette: I was especially amused because I thought our catalogs were all long-gone. In the last round of renos, they had to clear the storage area and (I thought) all our cabinets were shipped off to surplus asset recovery.
...BTW, that is your BEST icon yet. I don't think I've mentioned how fab the blonde is.
Rae: Yes, I did have fun... I just can't resist firing the sarcasm cannon. :)
Gosh, thanks! I had a streak job done so that I could look respectable for the job hunt mission, and looked in the mirror one day and realised how goddamn middle class it looked. So I posed the question that has saved me on so many occasions: WWJJD? What Would Joan Jet Do?
So I bleached the absolute crap out of it. :D
I confess to feeling rather glam, but the only trouble is that my serial blushing is even more apparent than ever now. :/
Post a Comment