Early in the 2016 spring semester, Voranan Vaan Taepaisitphongse ’17 asked Art Librarian Susanne Javorski if she could borrow a card catalog drawer for a Drawing 1 art project. In May, we got to see the fruits of her labors when her friend returned the drawer to the library (keeping the drawings) after photographing the images at Susanne’s request. Thank you to Vaan for allowing us to publish the photographs on the blog and to Susanne for providing them.
Wondering what a card catalog is? Information about the books and other resources in a library used to be typed onto 3″x 5″ cards, which were filed in drawers by author, title, and subject. To find the location of a book in the library or search for resources, the patron would flip through the cards in the appropriate drawer. Below is an archival photograph of the card catalogs in Olin’s front hallway (circa 1950’s or early 1960’s), courtesy of Special Collections & Archives.
