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A review by betsyrisen
The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures by Library of Congress, Peter Devereaux
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
5.0
"The old system, inherited from Thomas Jefferson and based on Bacon’s sixteenth- century conception of the forty classes of knowledge, was not expansive enough to handle the variety of books that were brought over from the Capitol, let alone what was to arrive in the coming years. Consider the number of inventions and new branches of scholarship that had emerged since Jefferson sold his collection to Congress in 1815. There had been no electric light, photography, or basketball, among hundreds of other subjects, when Jefferson prepared his 1815 catalog." >mind blown emoji<
"Younger library patrons in the 1990s who caught a glimpse, or even used, the “frozen” card catalogs that for a time stood side by side with the new computer terminals, may not have understood the reluctance many had in letting go of what scholar Markus Krajewski called the “paper machines.” See, I'm old. I definitely used a card catalog as a kid. I can still remember the way the old wooden drawers would stick when you'd try to open them. And oh, the smell. I'll never forget it.
"The Library of Congress houses the largest archival collection of Walt Whitman materials in the world. When Whitman noticed several errors in one edition of “O Captain! My Captain!” he mailed the page to the publishers with his corrections marked in ink." Stop it I can't.
I missed my calling as a Library of Congress cataloger. Apparently there is something called "Library Hand" script and I want to learn it. I LOVED THIS BOOK. It brought back so many memories for me, and really got me thinking about my reading journey as a whole, to be honest. It seems hard to fathom now, as I'm 20+ books in to my goal for the year on the first of February, but I actually took remedial reading classes in first and second grade. Something must have clicked at some point, because I've been off like a shot ever since.
Book fairs? Best thing to ever happen to me. School libraries? Would have moved in if I could have. First job? Library. College job? Library (two different ones, for that matter). A friend and I used to quiz each other on the Dewey Decimal System for FUN because we LIKED IT.
Ugh. This was the best.
"Younger library patrons in the 1990s who caught a glimpse, or even used, the “frozen” card catalogs that for a time stood side by side with the new computer terminals, may not have understood the reluctance many had in letting go of what scholar Markus Krajewski called the “paper machines.” See, I'm old. I definitely used a card catalog as a kid. I can still remember the way the old wooden drawers would stick when you'd try to open them. And oh, the smell. I'll never forget it.
"The Library of Congress houses the largest archival collection of Walt Whitman materials in the world. When Whitman noticed several errors in one edition of “O Captain! My Captain!” he mailed the page to the publishers with his corrections marked in ink." Stop it I can't.
I missed my calling as a Library of Congress cataloger. Apparently there is something called "Library Hand" script and I want to learn it. I LOVED THIS BOOK. It brought back so many memories for me, and really got me thinking about my reading journey as a whole, to be honest. It seems hard to fathom now, as I'm 20+ books in to my goal for the year on the first of February, but I actually took remedial reading classes in first and second grade. Something must have clicked at some point, because I've been off like a shot ever since.
Book fairs? Best thing to ever happen to me. School libraries? Would have moved in if I could have. First job? Library. College job? Library (two different ones, for that matter). A friend and I used to quiz each other on the Dewey Decimal System for FUN because we LIKED IT.
Ugh. This was the best.