Working on Things
Libraries have been emptying their card catalogs and tossing out all those wonderful, little cards, full of infomation for almost a decade. I love those little cards. I once helped type some of them up for my own school library. Now I just like to hold on to a few special ones by authors I love and make things out of the rest.
12 Comments:
How sweet! I love this!
xxxx
i work at the library and i love all the utilitarian things that have been around forever...sad to see them go! being around old things like card catalogs is comforting to me. :)
Thank you , Caroline!
Sally: Yes, I know....our card catalog is disappearing in June {sniff}. They even want to get rid of the book sin a few years. Library will be just a lounge with Wi-Fi.
it's a weird time to work at the library...not sure where the job will go over the next decades, and whether i wanna be in it or not...so hard to know...:P mulling over whether getting my masters would be worth it or not.
I know what you mean. Everyone working in libraries or pursuing a library science degree feels the same way. Our library is pushing for digital and it makes me sad. Digital can be tricky though, basically the publishing companies recognize the opportunity to make quite a bit of money so the digital subscriptions continue to increase in costs-rapidly. There isn't a really good system to track it all either and keep reliable records. I miss the libraries of the past-VERY MUCH! I was looking forward to paperwork and record keeping and it's nothing like that. I was awesome with the Periodical Guide:<
Oh Tera, so lovely! Have you heard of the project the San Francisco Public Library did when they got rid of their card catalogs? Such a thoughtful commemoration:
http://sfplamr.blogspot.com/2008/05/ann-chamberlain-1951-2008.html
Makes me sad, the loss of more & more artifacts in our lives.
I am so happy to have some old cards to cherish myself - gracie :)
just reading this now...was out of town for a bit...i work at sfpl, but not in the stacks (unfortunately) and have seen the card catalog commemoration on the walls. they did a good job with that.
it's weird to have always wanted to work at a library, and to now be working at one when things are changing so much. it's not quite what i expected and i am not sure whether to go to school and really pursue this or not...:P tera, do you have your mls?
Sally: I honestly saw this coming back in 1999 and decided not to pursue it. It is pricey and I wanted to stay in Austin as does just about everyone else who comes here to study so I thought it would be hard to get a job in town and at the time I was not ready to leave and live somewhere else. My friend got hers though in 2000 and is now a school librarian. That is a pretty precarious position to be in right now because it's Texas.
ah, it's interesting that you had that line of thought even back in '99. here in ca, the state is bankrupt and i have heard that getting an mls is kinda like going to law school in that waaaay too many people are coming out with degrees for how few jobs there are. i certainly see evidence of that at my work. and then, they are cutting all the 40 hr jobs to 20 hrs when people leave 40 hr positions...i am having a hard time seeing going back to school to then fight for a 20 hr job.
i am not sure if the private sector library situation is much better, but i kind of dream of working in a university library one day. or a school library where i could have summers off with my honey! :) (there's REALLY no jobs doing that anymore here.) but sadly i am coming to the conclusion that i just don't really think library work is gonna work out...still, i am keeping my lil library job for now, applying for scholarships and just letting the chips fall where they may for the moment.
do you have full time library work?
Sally: Funny you should ask, because I gave notice on Monday after working at a university library for 13 years. I am moving out of Austin for a year or so. If this seems sudden, it sort of is.
I just saw the degree becoming so popular. I also became familiar with digital serials that year and could see where that was going and what it could do.
wow, can't wait to hear more about the move and where you are off to! :) did you enjoy the work at the uni library?
I did. Although I must admit that I enjoyed things more pre-digital subscriptions. There are a lot of kinks and glitches in the whole system from the publisher's end to the vendors, libraries and the platforms need a lot of work as well.
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