The other day I finally had a look at a site that I knew about for a while but had never visited: The Virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisition Artifacts, maintained by a library school professor (I think, at the Univ. of South Carolina). I entered the library profession in 1992 so a lot of this, you would think, would be unknown to me. Not so. At The University of Chicago, I well remember many such artifacts being used well into the mid-1990s and, for all I know, still being used today. I remember electric pencils, manual typewriters, the old Cutter-Sanborn tables, and much, much more. One of the things I vividly remember is the old, clunky integrated library system still in use there in the early days of my career: LDMS (stands for Library Data Management System). One of the things that will always stay in my mind when I think of LDMS were the copious staff notes made in serial records by a previous librarian there, Helen Schmierer. (I think Helen may still be active in the profession but I’m not sure where.) Then too, how can I forget the entirely paper-based serial record for active and inactive print subscriptions? And the large, clunky Dieboldt machine that housed the inactive journal subscription records? And the card catalog and the paper shelflist? And the many interesting old cards written in library hand? Yes, there were courses in library school that taught one how to write in “library hand.” And don’t forget the knowledge one had to have of various filing rules. Those were the good old days, may they never come again…
One thing I plan to do is add the link to this site to the list of things my students are to review this summer when I will be teaching Technical Services Functions online again at UIUC GSLIS.