The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures (Gifts for Book Lovers, Gifts for Librarians, Book Club Gift)
TLDR: “A nice pictorial restrospective”
This is a small coffee table book, really. It’s mostly pictures, with a slight narrative running through it.
It’s published by the Library of Congress directly, and has a foreword from Carla Hayden, the current director.
There are a few chapters which talk about the history of trying to organize books. Each chapter finishes with pictures of various cards from library card catalogs.
When the Library of Congress finally retired their physical card catalog, they did something neat: they sent the physical cards to some notable authors and invited them to sign them and/or write a message and return them. A bunch of them are pictured.
The entire last half off the book are just pictures of library cards and other outdated ephemera from libraries. The book itself even has a cute detail: there’s an old school checkout card glued into the cover, like the kind you’ll fill out at school when you checked out a book.
It’s a fun book.
Book Info
- I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
- A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.