Flo and Friends by Jenny Campbell for October 17, 2024

That still works when the electricity and wi-fi are out.

I miss card catalogs and ka-chunker due date stampers.

They were good to look for things you wanted to read or cross reference a topic.

But without paid ads.

I have fond memories of card catalogues.

Sure do miss those card catalogues…..

They only kept track of what your library had – not exactly a “google”.

Our little liberal arts college in Annapolis had a few empty drawers in the card catalog back in the 1970s, and some of us started putting cards in one of them of imaginary books written by imaginary alumnus Socrates Schwartz. Can’t remember them now, but I added one by his sister, Sappho Schwartz: The Complete Fragment, published in Mytilene by The Olive Press. Bet you couldn’t do that with an online catalog, unless you were official. (I was modded because I included the name of the island where Sappho lived, of which Mytilene is the principal city. It’s related to a certain sexual orientation, because of the famous poet, but cripes, you can’t mention the name of the island?)

My brain is like those files. I still have all the cards, but someone has shuffled them up!