Are you old enough to remember standing in front of a wooden box in your school/neighborhood library, flipping through yellowed note cards, looking for the tittle/author of just the right book? As I sat in Mrs. Peterson’s 3rd grade classroom, learning the intricacies of the Dewey Decimal System, I would have never imagined that I would one day look back on it all with smiling nostalgia. Going to the library and thumbing through the old oak card catalog drawers – pulled out and sitting on a table – and finding titles like The Roghfort Gang, My Side of the Mountain, How to Eat Fried Worms – happy memories.
The days to the DDS and the card catalog are almost completely gone. Almost all libraries – large, small, rural, urban – have digitized their catalogs/holdings and have sold off or just thrown out their cabinets (insert look of horror). I had looked for my own case for the last 3-4 years before finding one at a decent price that fit in our home. A fine old card catalog should be de rigueur for a bookworm’s home office/living room. When I found that perfect one early this year, I may have caressed and spoke to it in soft loving tones for the first few days. I moved it right into my office, re-arranged the drawers, and mounted my book press on the top. Something was still missing though. I realized that I needed labels installed in the brass pull/placard to complete the piece. I set up a template in Visio and set the lettering to an interesting script-like font that I found at dafont. Then I had a little fun with naming the drawers from A to Z.