Ok, age check, who remembers?

[nadinbrzezinski]

for me, many, and I mean, MANY wonderful afternoons.

[Earth_First]

1. I am 35...

I still remember utilizing these.

Our 16 year-old daughter has never known this system.

[joeglow3]

86. Our 11 year old is learning it right now

[Chan790]

190. Hey, me too!

Do you remember this one too?

I was an expert at it at age-7, they had me training adults in how to use it and how to find the sought content. I wish they still used it, I'd never want for a job.

[Earth_First]

200. Microfiche!

Actually many records archives in public libraries still utilize it...

[roguevalley]

240. i typed all those cards four to five per item for 25 years after teaching all day to help my

Librarian mom

[bemildred]

2. Yeah, it was all so concrete back then.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I got my brother's

I never used them. I was at that nice dividing line.

[bemildred]

12. I learned all that, and then had to immediately forget it.

I still have my old Pickett slide rules for sentimental reasons. When the grid goes down, I'll be ready.

And I still prefer a book when I have serious reading to do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. I got a lot of them in electronic form since I have nowhere to put them

and the amount of reading at times I do for work is insane. Which reminds me, I have been slacking. There is a PRR I need to do.

[bemildred]

20. +1. nt

[lark]

107. I'm with you on that!

I filled my house with bookcases, then over-filled those, gave away 100 books and 2 years later the bookcases were bulging at the seams again. I finally tossed in the towel and migrated to a Kindle. Now I read more than ever without contributing to the clutter and have discovered a number of new writers that I wouldn't have found otherwise, so win/win.

[RKP5637]

228. It's also easier when you move too! We just moved enough books to sink the Titanic. And then

there were the records! OMG, I'm stopping here, makes me tired!

[Brainstormy]

284. LOL So true!

I have three kids and used to say I was going to leave my library to the child I liked least at the time of my death. In the interest of that being less of a burden, I'm almost all digital now.

[lark]

292. LOL

About 5 years ago we sold our entire record (vinyl) collection, which was around 500 albums, to a friend who's a DJ. He had to pick them up and move them as the price plus he treated us to a nice dinner. We all felt like winners, my living room looks so much cleaner and less cluttered and dusty. Now the CD collection has grown astronomically, but thankfully takes up a lot less space than books and albums.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. I still have mine.

And for a long time I kept it in a cup with some pencils on my desk at work, just to prove what a nerd I am.

[bemildred]

19. There you go. No batteries. I still like to use a pencil sometimes. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

61. My favorite pen...

is a Parker51 made in the first quarter of 1947. I remember the Dewey Decimal System. I, however, do not know how to use the K&E slide rule I have. I went to high school in the 80s, and calculators had taken over by then.

[maddiemom]

102. The Dewey Decimal system is still the system of organization in libraries, of course.

just the card catalog is gone. Showing my age, I found the card catalog a very quick way to find a book, the computer no improvement whatsoever; pretty much the same. Being a totally "right brain" person, the math related courses I had to take on an academic track in high school dragged my grade point average down all the time. Thankfully I didn't have to take them in college. But the calculator... I would have killed for it back in high school. Finding it a normal part of higher math classes in more recent years, I've been envious. These classes seem to be more focused on using the calculator at more complicated levels. My Ex, an engineer, tossed away his slide rule with great glee when he got his first calculator.

[eppur_se_muova]

189. Public and school libraries, anyway.

Most college libraries are LOC.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

179. My favorite razors are all older than I am ...

… some great Gillette double edge razors ranging from the early 1920s into the early 1960s. But my very favorites are mid-'50s Aristocrats, Diplomats and a President.

[mysuzuki2]

227. my dad worked for gillette for 40 years.

I still use the gillette double rdge i got for xmas in1965. Getting hard to find blades though.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

261. I buy online ...

http://www.westcoastshaving.com/ has DE blades, sample packs included. I have ordered there with no issue.

You might also want to take a look at sites like Badgerandblade.com - lots of user reviews for blades, brushes, razors, vendors, etc. And a lot of history about the old Gillettes. And shavemyface.com. Lots of information there as well.

Those Gillette DEs are just wonderful. Far superior performance to any of the cartridge razors or electric I have used in the many decades of shaving.

[awoke_in_2003]

239. I have a modern Edwin Jagger double edge...

I don't use very much. I have an EverReady1912 single edge (they stop making the 1912 around 1920, so it is at least 94) that I use about 70% of the time. Then I have a Genco straight razor- probably about 100 years old. I only use the straight when I have to time to SLOW down. I still bear a 3 inch scar (not very deep) from the first time I put it to my face. My sink looked like a Tarantino movie

[SomeGuyInEagan]

264. I can't get the technique down for straights.

That's what I intended to go to when I stumbled across this whole world of DEs that still existed. I remembered my dad's old Gillette DE but by the time I started shaving, it was all cartridges and electric.

Just last summer, I noticed an old Gillette "on display" at the in-laws in one of the bathrooms (on a shelf with soaps and knick knacks). My father-in-law said it was his dad's old razor and I mentioned he could still use it and left some blades with him. He's been using it since and gives me updates on which blade he is now trying. Kind of fun to get an email at 7 a.m. from him, with a subject line like, "Third shave with a Personna Lab Blue today" with the pros and cons in great detail in the message.

[awoke_in_2003]

274. Come visit us...

at badgerandblade.com. It is a dedicated wet shaving forum, but there are a lot of various subforums. It is kind of a one stop shop for a wide variety of interests. Because of that site I am now in to fountain pens and fine pipe tobacco, in addition to shaving stuff like shaving soap and brushes. There are areas for the outdoorsmen, fine spirits, vintage photography, and even a haberdashery. Come take a look. If you do, I am oc_in_fw. Be forewarned- ungentlemanly behavior is not tolerated. Discussions on politics and religion are watched very closely, as both topics can turn ugly fast. The nice thing is that if someone shows their ass, they are quickly corrected.

[RKP5637]

18. I've still got mine, but fell in love with TI's SR-10 when it came out. I still have it someplace.

The exponential function saved sooo much time (ha, and mistakes).

[bemildred]

23. Yes, calculators are much better.

I'm not sure it's a good thing that people are not taught about significant digits as they were in the past, but for fancy math, computers have been a revolution.

But for spitballing, a slide rule can still do the job fine.

[GliderGuider]

115. My first love was an HP 33E

Last edited Wed Mar 5, 2014, 09:25 PM - Edit history (1)

I adored SHILOP (aka RPN...), and it meant that nobody ever asked to borrow my calculator twice.

[GeorgeGist]

279. OMG

Reverse Polish. I felt so advanced knowing how to use it.

[GliderGuider]

282. "Thanks for lending me your calculator. Now where's the @#%$* equal sign, smartass???"

[Sancho]

59. I had a slide rule collection!

[bemildred]

79. I still have three. And a couple HP RPN calculators.

And all sorts of old drafting equipment.

[kentauros]

105. Do you still have a drafting table?

When I have the room again, that's one thing I want to buy, especially an older wooden, trestle type

[bemildred]

139. Nope, sorry, that was sold. nt

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

212. I still have my drafting equipment from college.

It's collecting dust in storage.

[kentauros]

215. The same is true for some of mine, like the drafting machine.

Other things I still use semi-regularly, such as my cutting mat, Pentel pencils, and graph paper.

Although, there's a wonderful site online to make your own graph paper

Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs

[Enthusiast]

178. I still have one.

[Jack Rabbit]

196. I just owed up to being that old on another thread.

!!

[bemildred]

199. Hi Jack. Nice to see you around.

I'll look into that one.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

210. I learned the slide rule in the mid-1970s

Then bought a calculator the next year.

[bemildred]

280. Yeah, you're around 10 years behind me.

They were still using them when I first went to college in the mid-60s, but by 1972 or so it was all over.

[Autumn]

3. I spent many wonderful hours doing that.

The Library was my favorite place. Thanks for the blast from the past.

[RKP5637]

5. LOL, Yes, at the Library of Congress and also my universities' stacks! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I got to do it at the National Archives in Mexico City

I don't know about the Library of Congress, but I heard the system was similar. You brought the reference and title to the librarian and they had somebody search for it, and send it down. You really never truly entered the archives.

What blew my mind was junior high students working with primary documents. And of course we old fogeys (by their standards) working with them with gloves and dust masks.

[RKP5637]

26. It was similar at the Library of Congress. I used to get a bunch of stuff at one time, so

they would go into the stacks and roll down a cart, or I got them at the desk and put them on a cart. LOL, I can't recall now, it was a long long time ago! It was so impressive being in the LC as just a college punk.

At school, which had a quite large library, you just went into the stacks and got the books yourself and placed them when finished on a cart. I use to study in the stacks all the time, it was more quiet and inspirational for me than hanging out with my roommates.

The other place I used to go was the NIH library, something like that. It was the same.

I wonder if today that stuff is all that accessible.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. They have put a lot of it in electronic form

both archives actually, so we don't have to physically touch delicate documents.

[RKP5637]

48. That makes good sense, of course, but it kind of takes the mystery of touch out of it ... n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. Yeah, but some of those documents are extremely delicate

so it is good they remain in a humidity controlled room.

[RKP5637]

53. Yep! n/t

[RebelOne]

6. Yes, throughout my school years and beyond.

I spent a lot of time at the library.

[Bobbie Jo]

7. Yes indeed

College.....the hard way.

That, and a whole lotta this

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Warpy]

33. Ugh, remember erasing carbon triplicates?

I was delighted to see that technology become mostly discarded.

[Bobbie Jo]

44. Word processing....

Best technology upgrade ever.

[Warpy]

180. Oh, I hated using Word Star, it just got in the way

but finding an electric typewriter with a one line editing feature was the best thing ever.

I never did rough drafts, just composed in my head and the night before it was due, I'd bang it out on the typewriter. That one line editing feature got rid of my typos.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

257. Remember when bosses wanted computers to SOUND like a typewriter?

They associated that sound with "working".

Too many times these geniuses would accuse their secretary of doing her nails all day.

[RKP5637]

52. Triple quadruple ugh! A wonderful bygone technology! n/t

[RKP5637]

37. OMG, so many times I typed a stupid page over again because of too many mistakes. n/t

[Skittles]

127. I made nice spending money back then, typing stuff for college kids

[RKP5637]

201. I'll keep that in mind for my next term paper! LOL!

[Skittles]

203. I learned to type in the military while transcribing morse code

when the code got dropped, typing was a breeze

[RKP5637]

206. Wow, that's cool! I learned morse code way back then, but nothing close to

what you did. I just stumbled through it for boy scouts. Man they were fast in the military, I used to listen to morse code on my SW radio, they keyed so fast I could hardly hear the breaks. It was like listening to a sympathy. I used to fall asleep listening to it some nights. I get nostalgic for those says sometimes. I grew up near some major shipping ports, sometimes I think it was the ships I heard.

[Skittles]

219. I did some typing in England & high school

but never took it seriously because I thought, "I won't ever be a secretary." My dad told me in the future, everyone would need to type. I thought that sounded ridiculous, but he was right.

[RKP5637]

225. My dad did the same. I was in the sciences in high school and was headed off to

college for the same, the summer before he forced me to take a typing class at summer school saying you'll thank me for this some day, and I have, hundreds and hundreds of times. Yep, I thought the same too, it sounded ridiculous, but he was right, as he was about everything!

[Bobbie Jo]

258. Yep....

I found a wonderful typist who saved my behind a time or two.

[Skittles]

263. yup, I saved one guy bigtime

and he referred me to many friends

[Cleita]

145. Yes and if you had carbons it was worse.

Word processing is one of the best things of the tech revolution. From someone who had to earn her living mostly from being attached at the hip to a typewriter.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

161. I took an IBM Standard with me to college.

So I could type my own term papers, and made a little money typing other peoples' term papers.
A Standard has type bars instead of a ball like a Selectric.

I remember my roommates were horrified because bringing in an IBM typewriter meant I was serious about studying and I had absolutely no interest in sororities. This was at an expensive small private college.

I took one semester of typing in high school just to learn the keyboard. After that I used my mom's IBM Executive (variable spacing in 32nds of an inch) to type on, because I was too fast for a manual. I could jam a Selectric too--you go too fast and it prints a hyphen instead of a letter.

Piano lessons are VERY useful.

I was child labor at my house--after I learned to type at 17 I typed my dad's wills and assorted pleadings and legal documents. He was a lawyer and Mom was his first legal secretary. I was his second.

[Cleita]

185. I got a job once because I could do statistical typing on an IBM Executive

typewriter. It was supposed to be an in company promotion to be secretary to the CFO of a large bank, but none of secretaries could master the spacing tabs and numbers on an Executive so they had to hire from outside. I was not liked at first by those women passed up of promotion, but there was not a typewriter I didn't know how to use right on back to the round key Royal from the 1920s.



Another one of my vast skills that are no longer needed today. Just stamp me obsolete.

[RKP5637]

202. I used to manage to smear the carbon onto my fingers and somehow ever so gracefully smear

it all over the original. I was a disaster. Fortunately, my sister was an excellent typist, worked for IBM and had one of their Selectrics at home. That, was an amazing technology back then.

[Cleita]

217. Yeah, it was a state of the art typewriter, and then Xerox and white out came out

at the same time making it possible to white out your mistakes, copy the typed original, then get the signatures and possibly seals on that corrected copy, which became the original document. Then you could copy that as many times as you needed eliminating the need for carbons forever. This was really a plus when working with legal documents.

[virgdem]

64. I would have killed to have an electric typewriter...

In the stone ages known as the 60's and 70's, I typed all of my high school and college papers on a manual Smith Carona typewriter. I can't count the number of pages I had to discard due to mistakes. Wite out was my friend, as was specialized typing paper that you could easily erase typos on. And the countless hours spent in the library perusing the card files for necessary information for term papers. Ah the memories.

[RKP5637]

233. I had one of those as a portable, a manual Smith Corona typewriter. Was I ever glad

to have that in college. My sister had gotten an IBM Selectric, so gave to me her Smith Corona portable. I blundered through some of my papers at school on my own, but then took the longer papers to my sisters for help, but she lived about 3 hours away.

Ha, I'm very grateful for spell check! I know how to spell, but I'm glad DU never sees my draft replies before spell check! LOL!

[SunSeeker]

82. Yes, but it kept letters-- and legal opinions--short.

It forced people to be better, clearer, more succinct writers. The length of Supreme Court opinions exploded with the advent of the word processor. The mountains of added verbiage and footnotes has not helped clarity.

Good God, I sound old.

[Brigid]

141. Ah, yes . . . IBM typewriters.

We got Selectrics my senior year of high school. They looked a lot like this, but this isn't it -- I don't see one of those little balls in the carriage. You could remove it and put in another to change the font.

Of course I remember card catalogs! Ah, the good old days.

[mike dub]

194. I'm 42 and remember card catalogs AND the IBM Selectric

About the Selectric: I was always fascinated that, A.) there was a typewriter so fancy that you had to Plug It In (having only seen a couple manual ones in the 70's---I hadn't thought a power typewriter could exist and B.) that little typeset Ball in the Selectric was so cool. The thing seemed to move so fast, my eye could barely see it. Childhood fascinations.

[Riftaxe]

253. Nice selectric

I had an old royal manual typewriter, and still punch keys on keyboards instead of press touching.

[panader0]

8. Ah, the Dewey Decimal System. I remember.

[SunSeeker]

87. My favorites were the 900s-history and biographies.

I would just thumb through the 900s in the card catalogue and see what looked interesting.

[Brigid]

148. We built a huge addition on to our central library here.

The 900s are on the sixth floor of it. Lots of good stuff.

[SunSeeker]

165. Heaven!

[Brigid]

293. Well, it is the top floor.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

9. Was in a research library just recently...

and told the Reference Librarian that "clearly thieves have broken in and made off with all your card files."

We had a good laugh.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. I remember it very well. And the Dewey Decimal System.

The other thing I remember from my college library was the copy machine - the Ur-Xerox. It was huge, about the size of a piano. You'd put your document on the glass, close the lid, put a nickel in the slot and push a button. Then the thing would rumble and hum for about a minute and finally a piece of strange-smelling shiny paper would ooze out. It took forever to copy more than just a few pages.

The good old days were old but not always good.

[maddiemom]

108. But wait, youngster: some of us remember back to the carbon copiers!

You typed or wrote what you wanted on the top sheet, then ran it through the machine to get your copies. Anyone who taught school prior to the "80's" or so will never forget them. An extra benefit was the fluid that fueled them. It would take ink out of ANYTHING, clothing especially. No more going home with ink stains.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

119. Oh, yes, the mimeograph machine.

I remember those, too, from the '50s and early '60s. I think you could get high on mimeo fluid.

[mike dub]

195. We used to call a variant of that Ditto Machines...

Still love the scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Mr Hand passes out an assignment and all the kids smell their sheet of paper.

[maddiemom]

205. Well yeah, that too. Too brief to qualify as a "high," however. The ink remover thing

was very valid, however.

[alittlelark]

14. Dewey Decimal System

[mwooldri]

237. Obligatory Weird Al Video Clip...

?t=16s

[Brother Buzz]

16. Journalists used Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature for double super secret background research

[CTyankee]

118. my local library has them still, altho I don't know why...

yes, that was my google in college...

[Brigid]

146. Ah, yes.

Used it all thhe time to find articles for school papers.

[RockaFowler]

17. Totally Remember this

Trying to find a book based upon the Dewey-Decimal system was the best!!

[11 Bravo]

21. Damn, like it was yesterday!

[NCTraveler]

22. K&R nt.

[malaise]

24. I spent years sitting on the floor or standing in libraries at home and overseas

searching for books and articles. I loved it.
I remember an old man Bob at the UM Library - he helped me find stuff summer after summer when I'd fly up to use their library.

Rec

[AgingAmerican]

25. You kids these days

With your "cloud computing" and your "Googly docs." Back in my day we used attachments, and we LIKED IT THAT WAY!!

[hedgehog]

27. Me! How about old-style Wiki?

?w=450&h=450

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Ah yes, that ancient wiki

updating it though, was a problem. Why you always had to be clear what year and edition. (And these days the wiki is hit or miss as to how reliable it is, though a good place to start a search... it is the references)

[HubertHeaver]

248. In our grade school, the third/fourth grade room had

World Book published in 1935. The fifth/sixth grade room had Britannica published in 1950. We learned early that all sources were not equal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

250. We had them at home

My school had a good library, but my parents were great and we had them at home, at home it was Salvat. That is a Spanish editorial house, in some ways like Britannica. I loved to cuddle in the corner with it, and read it. I was weird that way.

[randome]

40. I learned so much from World Book! Good times.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[Blue_Tires]

41. +1

[geardaddy]

67. I would spend hours and hours at home

going through our World Book series. Good times.

[Blue_In_AK]

73. When I was a little kid,

I used to pick out a letter and read the whole book. I guess I was kind of a weird child.

[hedgehog]

74. I wonder how many of us who did that ended up here!

[Blue_In_AK]

75. We're ALL weird kids now.

[RKP5637]

238. LOL, I discovered that when I first found DU. All the weird kids got together! And I said

DU is for me!

[hunter]

192. I did that too.

My parents had the supermarket Funk & Wagnalls.

The supermarket would have a new volume every week, and a few volumes from previous weeks, so you could eventually acquire the entire set if you were loyal to that supermarket.

Spend enough money on a shopping trip and you could get individual volumes for free!

[Savannahmann]

140. It was Funk and Wagnals in our house

We even had the year books, which I loved. I told my Little Brother that the Year Books were things we thought we knew, but got wrong and had figured out that year.

Sometimes I miss those old books. But the folks sold them at garage sale shortly after I left home.

[Brigid]

150. Old-style wiki was not always so good.

Sometimes, even in newer editions, the articles had not been updated in years. Not good.

[malthaussen]

28. Card catalogues, microfiche, microfilm...

... these things are why we old folks appreciate the Internet so much!

For an acting class I took c '73, I had to develop a mime routine, and I came up with one where I started by looking up a book in the card catalogue, then going to the stacks to get the book. But the book was on the top shelf, so I had to jump for it... and brought the whole stack down on me. Hey, I got an A for it -- the teacher said I was good at falling.

-- Mal

[RockaFowler]

57. Microfiche was cool too

[Skittles]

128. I made microfiche at a bank

ooh now those were some harsh chemicals

[Jim Lane]

223. What do you mean, "was"? I used a microfiche two days ago.

New York State court decisions are available electronically. Sometimes, though, you need more information than is in the decision itself. For many cases, the briefs and other background documents are available only on microfiche (in, I think, about a dozen libraries around the state).

At the City Bar Association library in midtown Manhattan (a couple miles and several decades from Google's building in Chelsea), you convey your request by applying ink to a piece of dead tree and walking up to the front desk with it. A few minutes later, someone comes to the table where you're sitting and hands you an envelope with the microfiches for that case record. Then you go into the back room where the microfiche reader is.

I think I have an advantage over some younger lawyers who don't even know about this resource. If they can't find something online, it just doesn't exist for them.

[llmart]

245. I worked in a law library.....

at a law school. They still have microfiche. Doesn't mean the students used it though. They didn't even want to use the books They used to come up to the reference desk and say to me, "Why do we need all these books when we can find everything we need online?"

[Jim Lane]

255. Online, schmonline.

As you and I know, "we can find everything we need online" simply isn't true.

Beyond that, there's an advantage to knowing more than one way to do it. I began my legal career in the early days of online research, so I learned how to use the print sources and how to use the computer. Even now, I'll be sitting at the law library, at a computer terminal that can access everything I need, but I'll occasionally get up and walk 50 feet to where I know the right book is. The reason is that, with my training and experience, there are some questions that I can answer much more quickly by using the Gutenberg media.

Admittedly, some of those students you encountered are probably a bit faster with the online work than I am -- but they're paying a price for their disdain for noncomputerized sources.

[llmart]

283. Agreed!

I was always heartily encouraged by the Research and Writing professor who insisted that his students use actual books. He was a young guy which was doubly impressive to me.

[MineralMan]

29. I love card catalogs, and miss them greatly.

Their demise is disappointing, but books, too seem to be disappearing from libraries as well.

[Cleita]

42. Money for funding libraries is disappearing. Budget cuts have caused our library to

shorten hours and depend on donations for books.

[frazzled]

50. They still exist in virtual form ...

I spent untold hours in the card catalogue files to do research for my work, or just plain fact-checking of bibliographic material or footnote references.

Today, I can go to the "card catalogues" of hundreds of different libraries online. I often use the Library of Congress or Harvard or other university libraries to search for bibliographic information--the exact same stuff, in the same form as it existed on those cute cards.

If I need a particular book in person, I sometimes get mr. frazzled to get it out of one of the academic libraries to which he has access for me.

[longship]

30. My greatest card catalog experience.

The card catalog at the Library of Congress. I was helping a dear friend research for a book. We went deep into the bowels of the Jefferson Building and spent hours pouring through the undoubtedly millions of cards. When we took breaks, we toured the wonderful architecture and art of this most wonderful library. It is an astounding place, a cathedral to learning.

Witness. The pictures do not do it justice.

The exterior:


One of the first awesome views on the tour:


Ceilings!




Under the dome. The great reading room and main desk:


Art is everywhere:



One of the best tours in DC. And an incredible place to do research.

[RKP5637]

43. Beautiful! Those pictures brought back so many memories of my days at the LC as a student. n/t

[longship]

62. It is one of the best tours in DC.

That, and the US Archives.

I did the research there in the late 70's. In the early noughts I vacationed in DC with my then wife and friends. We toured the Thomas Jefferson Building as part of a package deal (a very good one, BTW). It brought back many memories. It is an unforgetably jaw-dropping and astounding place.

My manditory DC area tour list:

White House: arrange through your Congress critter.

US Capital: same as White House, I think.

Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress.

US Archives.

FDR Memorial.

Viet Nam Veteran Memorial.

And outside DC:

Monticello!!

Mount Vernon.

Montpelier. (James Madison's home.)

Of course, there's also the other Memorials, too. One can spend a lot of time seeing nothing but history. But these are my faves.

[RKP5637]

84. I lived in D.C. for years in my youth. I've been to many places. Somehow, in my youth, I

did not appreciate all that D.C. and the surrounding areas had to offer, it was where I lived. Looking back, I wish I had visited more areas. On weekends, I used to spend a lot of time at the Smithsonian Institute. I loved to go to the Smithsonian. In my college partying days, some of the buildings were landmarks when driving at night when someone gave the directions to the party. LOL

I've been to all of the places you've mentioned and your list is wonderful!!!!

I loved D.C., I have a lot of nostalgia for D.C.

[CherokeeDem]

109. I agree the Library of Congress and the Archives are my favorites....

I've done all of the sites you mentioned with the exception of Montpelier... now I have an excuse to go back!!!

[NastyRiffraff]

231. I love the Library of Congress!

I used to do a lot of research there. Using their microfiche!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

270. Will we ever be allowed to build anything this beautiful again? It's OK to spend trillions

on weapons of war, no problem to give billions in tax breaks for profitable corporations, but millions on a beautiful public building? Fox Noise will never let it happen again.

[Democracyinkind]

31. I was born in 1983 but depended on prehistoric googling for my MA thesis.

[hrmjustin]

35. Yes I remember.

[Cleita]

36. Actually, I miss being able to do that at the library. I actually found it

more efficient and less intrusive than google. I prefer my own filtering system, not theirs.

[dsteve01]

38. I worked at UNM libraries

There's was a whole room still dedicated to this technology way in the back. We had digitized all the records so it didn't make much sense to have all that card-stock around -- we started using it for scrap paper while searching for other books. I remember that the old librarian would still talk about 'those days' when they actually had to work hard to find books.

Easier to find the books these days -- but the floorspace for books has multiplied a few times so I had to jog everywhere. It's kinda a mixed blessing in my opinion.

Most books should be articles. And most articles should never have been written.

[Cleita]

45. Actually I find no written word in print junk even pornography.

It gives future generations a better insight into past societies no historical chroniclers do. I used to read Victorian porn because it gave an insight into the class system of England at that time. It fills in the victimization of poor women by rich lords filling in what Dickens couldn't tell us about poverty, oppression and factory life in that era.

[RKP5637]

71. I wonder if eons from today DU will be a prehistoric find to savor, lol. Yes, I agree

with all you said, wonderful insight into past societies, especially when we find in many ways we have not really changed that much!

[Cleita]

110. Not even eons. Maybe a century, but how much electronic media

will have survived? Maybe even less than printed matter.

[NM_Birder]

176. Gee you're old ;)

Bowl of green chile stew and a copy-cat burger at Frontier ...... as good today as it has ever been

[Auggie]

39. Akin to a treasure hunt, in a way ...

especially when you were looking for that perfect term paper source. Yeah, I remember.

[demwing]

46. If Google's Data Centers used Punch Cards

Let's assume Google has a storage capacity of 15 exabytes, or 15,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

A punch card can hold about 80 characters, and a box of cards holds 2000 cards.

15 exabytes of punch cards would be enough to cover my home region, New England, to a depth of about 4.5 kilometers. That's three times deeper than the ice sheets that covered the region during the last advance of the glaciers.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

[RKP5637]

241. Wow, just wow.

[Swede Atlanta]

47. I was just discussing this with my 20-something nephew.......

I remember spending hours going through the card catalog and noting tens if not hundreds of "potential" sources for a paper. Then it was to the stacks to find those various books and then combing through them to validate their application. So many times the books you wanted were checked out or had been lost.

As well I was helping him with a paper, mostly around grammar and some tips on sentence construction such as don't start with a preposition, use active voice, simple structure, etc. I told him when I went to college everything was typed on paper. You could jot your ideas and outline on paper but everything was done on paper. If you didn't leave enough room for a footnote at the bottom of a page you had to re-type the page completely. If you later in the paper decided you wanted to pull a section forward, etc. it might require retyping the entire paper.

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. I remember that

My sis decided to get a computer for college, it was a 286 AT, no hard drive, 512 K or RAM (ooohhh), and a dot matrix printer. Word Perfect 5.1. That was like advanced. I was deadly afraid of breaking that thing. We were ahead of people by a bundle, who were still typing all. Ok, I typed mine, she typed it on hers. When she finally let me type my papers on that machine it was like, I ain't going back. I worked at the school cafeteria and put my dollars and cents away. My first machine was actually a portable word processor, a Tandy unit.

These days I am the one doing basic IT at home, and she wants nothing to do with computers after work.

[malthaussen]

63. Back around 1980...

... I was fervently saving my nickels and dimes to buy a Correcting Selectric II. Loved those typewriters.

But then I decided to get an Apple II instead. Never used a typewriter since.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. The Apple II was way too expensive

I bought the Tandy for 200 bucks.

Two years later I bought an actual laptop. The word processor was light, the laptop, not so much. It did not have a drive either.

Amazing, when kids have the technology they have these days. Though I celebrated when Pages introduced footnotes into the Ipad 7 version. It was like no more having to do this manually.

[malthaussen]

76. I used a college grant to buy the Apple...

... you remember, back in those days, the government would actually help people go to college? I got the Apple so I could use a modem and write programs on the computer instead of standing in line for an hour to punch cards. Which I'd then have to re-punch because of a typo.

I always used endnotes. Saved all kinds of trouble.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

78. Ah but as a green card holder

I did not qualify for those grants. Thanks dad since he paid for school, but he did not get the computers, hell, he did not ever get them, so they were useless toys to him. So I had to do it the hard way, work for it.

These days kids have to do it, all of it, the hard way. It sickens me. We should be investing in those kids.

[malthaussen]

88. Couldn't agree with you more.

When I compare the actual cost of my two degrees with what it costs today, I am dumbfounded anyone even goes to college. The crooks and liars really took over.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

94. Yes they did

[wryter2000]

163. Best typewriter ever

If I had to use a typewriter, I'd want one of those. Of course, word processors are huge progress. I had a professor who went directly from a manual typewriter, circa 1949, to a computer.

I'd love to have WP5.1 for DOS back.

[shenmue]

54. Yes! The lovely card catalog.

Technology the way God intended it!

[Sancho]

55. Haha, my college library had two floors Dewey Decimal and two floors Library of Congress!

I was a pro with the card catalog!!

The buildings didn't have alarms then either. One time I had a paper due at 8 am, so my roommate and I hid overnight in a study room and finished the report.

Those were the days! Not even a hint of a computer or cell phone. The fun part was typing on a typewriter too! White out, typewriter ribbons, manually counting the words, and figuring out space for footnotes.

Thanks for the picture.

[liberal N proud]

56. It took me years to figure that system out then they threw it out

[In_The_Wind]

58. That was the only way to research anything when I was a child.

[Paper Roses]

60. I miss the card catalogs. Finding a book was so quick and easy. Not so any more.

At least not for me. There was also the bonus of seeing a different title as you fingered through the cards for what you wanted. Didn't know the book titles you would need? Just look up the category.
Head to the same number all the time.
All titles in the the category in the same spot for your quick perusal.
This old timer preferred this, the current system takes me too much time.

[CJCRANE]

65. The good thing about the "old school" days

is that you had to leave the house!

Now I can buy everything, research everything and contact everybody...without getting out of bed!

(I do actually get out of bed but you get my point).

[gvstn]

66. It is a little late since most have been bought up already

But you can bring a little nostalgia home:



Link: http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/decorating/two-toned-dresser-makeover.html

Or another that looks nice:


Link: http://dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.com/2012/01/vintage-library-card-catalogs.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. Oh WOW!!!!!!

[IDemo]

68. I was a directory assistance operator for two years using these:

In a room with the curtains drawn to reduce glare on the screens.

[nadinbrzezinski]

80. Now that looks positively painful

[IDemo]

207. Most of us had 500 or more numbers memorized

and got rapid enough with finding the listing from a stack of microfiche that it usually took only seconds. It was a dismal work environment though, like working in a gloomy cave.

After that, it was a year and a half on the long distance cord board, ala Lily Tomlin, right at the same time that her skit hit the airwaves.
Thing is, we really DID care back then.

[nadinbrzezinski]

209. That is one observation my cousin made

She spent time in Chicago doing research. She said, Americans do not care, at all, about the services they provide.

She came form Mexico City where complaining about the phone company is a national sport, but she said they care down there.

My theory, people have been pounded to the point that they do not care... more than absolutely necessary.

[IDemo]

216. look for the union label

[sakabatou]

70. I remember that

Though, it was electronic in my day.

[Rhythm]

77. 47 1/2... and i want...

...an old-fashioned elementary-school-height card-catalogue cabinet to use as a giant spice-rack/prep-table, so i can finally find the things i'm looking for while cooking, and have extra room to actually DO prep!

[TeeYiYi]

81. In the larger scheme of things...

...it really wasn't that long ago.

Meanwhile, I'll take mimeograph machines for $1000, Alex.


TYY

[nadinbrzezinski]

83. The smell of the ink on those things

I remember that too.

[DemoTex]

85. Required freshman course (1st qtr) was: "Use of Library 101"

That was, perhaps, the best college course I ever took. All the rest just fell into place because I had aced "Use of Library 101."

[catbyte]

89. LOL, my co-worker & I were talking about just that with our student worker!

We were giving her the "We walked 5 miles to school & back in the snow--all of it uphill" type of lecture about library research then & now.

[Feral Child]

90. Ha! Literature major in the '70s.

The Dewey Decimal System...

BTW, my public elementary school was named "Dewey", in a working class neighborhood in a midwestern city.

Yep, union democrat. Nowadays, I consider myself a bit further left.


EDIT: BTW, is that nadin in the foto?

[nadinbrzezinski]

162. No, that is not me, but I still have a sweater like that

my mom knitted it.

[Feral Child]

166. Cool.

Nice sweater, actually.

I still have my army field-jacket. The only other old clothes I have came from a thrift shop. I'm too hard on clothes for them to last.

[nadinbrzezinski]

168. I gave away my EMS uniforms before we moved to Honolulu

a long time ago. They were good.

[Nitram]

91. I remember it all too well

And I hated it! Almost as bad as using a typewriter instead of a word processor.

[Drew Richards]

92. OOo Dewy decimal and LCC woot woot...did my undergraduate thesis research at LC

[kentauros]

93. I have fonder memories of one of these:

including the drafting machine (which I still own for when I have room for a nice-sized drafting table )

[nadinbrzezinski]

97. We have a T square somewhere still

[kentauros]

100. I think I've got two, somehow.

One is metal, and I think the other is wood. I do still have all of my shape-templates. They're in a black plastic photo-paper bag behind me (it was the right size to hold them all and keep them together.)

Interestingly, I still use some of my tools, like for cutting custom To/From notes for gifts after printing them. Those metal rulers are great for slicing with Xacto knives.

Some things I'll probably never use again, such as the pantograph.


And then there's engineer's compass set I got from my father

[sinkingfeeling]

95. Yes, I remember card catalogs and phone books as well.

[Aerows]

96. 41 and I practically

*lived* in the library.

[JDPriestly]

98. And how. I actually rather enjoyed filing back when I was younger. But not now.

I have a lot of it to do. We still use hard copies of a lot of things.

[Glorfindel]

99. Oh, yes, I remember...the library was wonderland for me!

I'm still a book-a-holic. Thanks for sharing the memories.

[get the red out]

101. Many for me too!!!!

The public library was one of my favorite places as a kid!

[Sognefjord]

103. Our state historical library still has a card catalog in addition to the digital search.

I use both and I still do research in old newspapers since all (nearly all) in Iowa are only available in microfilm. I am hurrying to do the research as fast as I can since Governor Branstad apparently desires to shut down any state funding of historical archives.

[ellie]

104. Yes, and the "computer" was never down.

I think the card catalog is superior in that way.

[lark]

106. I remember the Dewey Decimal System and the cards so well

I ws a Jr. Librarian in high school plus an avid reader who was at the public library at least once a week searching for new adventures in reading.

[Avalux]

111. The library was my favorite place!

Before high school, mom or dad would have to drive me, usually once a month on a Saturday. I'd check out the max number of books because it would be awhile til I went back. When in high school I could walk there after class.

[bvar22]

112. These marvels of Modern Technology were amazing at the time.

(Bonus Points if you can identify the above box.
It was ubiquitous in Engineering Colleges of the late 60s/early 70s
On the last day of the semester, the air would be filled with clouds of these cards floating down
from the roofs of the highest buildings on campus.)

I remember watching 2001 Space Odyssey (1968) with some High School friends.
The astronauts were carrying around Portable, Flat Screen, Touch Screen, Video Communication/Information devices.
We all agreed that that would never happen.

I wonder what things will look like 50 years from now?

[nadinbrzezinski]

114. I never personally used them, and my college had long migrated away

from them, to the new fangled 386... ooohhh... ah punch cards, for programming.

I will cheat, in my history of science course the teacher brought a box of these things from the Media department, last surviving box.

[malthaussen]

116. Frankly, I fear that in 50 years, people will be unrecognizable.

Always supposing we last that long, I expect that cyborgs are in our future, with artificial organs plugging us into the system... and the system into us.

-- Mal

[bvar22]

121. That is kinda frightening.

I often find myself thinking,
"I am glad I'm old.

I fear for the futures of our youth,
and am deeply ashamed of the World we are leaving to them.

To many are asking:
"Can we do this and make a bunch of MONEY?"

instead of:
"Should we do this?"

[malthaussen]

126. My sentiments exactly...

... although I'm a couple years younger than you.

The question for the Ruling Class is how to control the seething masses, especially since most people are disposable from their point of view. Imagine the prospects of control when everyone is wired into the Central Computer. Kind of like the Matrix, except the rulers can watch the marks suffer.

But now I'm injecting a downer into a lighthearted thread.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

133. They are already playing with this

for real.

If we do not blow each other to kingdom come, the leading edge of this is expected by the 2050s.

[malthaussen]

134. Yes, it brings out the Luddite in me.

The people investigating these things are so excited by the potential... I just find it chilling. They do not ask, as BVar says, "Should we do this?"

It's ever been thus.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

135. I see the good thing in it

potentially, but in the wrong hands... and this has that potential.

Right now playing with some of that, and advanced AI and all that in fiction. I have tried not writing dystopian worlds, I always end up with one. Hell, this started as a short story, I swear.

[malthaussen]

143. Must be your gut telling you something, eh?

Our ethics have never kept up with our technology, and this has led to a lot of lamentable problems over the course of history. It's hard to imagine a future that isn't dystopian, because it would require a change in the nature of Man. Increased centralization, concentration of capital and information in the hands of a few, who will parcel it out at their discretion, and constant surveillance of the masses to stave off any potential danger. A benevolent tyranny only works for the masses if the tyrant is benevolent, but the type of personality who desires to be a tyrant is not benevolent.

Add in the shifting power among nations and people as the Europeans who have dominated the world for the past couple of centuries see their power dissipating, and I'm not sanguine that we will last those 50 years, although the human race has muddled through this sort of thing before. But not with nuclear weapons.

Add in the blind disregard of environmental damage due to an outmoded and wasteful theory of economics, and again things don't look too good for our unhappy planet.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

149. I watch UFO programs because they are a rich trove for fiction

but one thing a former Canadian Minister of Defense said had me going... ok, that is plausible

I will paraphrase and add a corollary

"Governments have not released this information because it will be very hard for people to grasp the danger of an Alien race trying to take over the world." Corollary to that, "it will also end all world conflict and we cannot have that, now can we?"

After decades of reading into grays, and genetic engineering and lizard people, that one jumped at me last Saturday. The first time anybody in that environment said something that actually made sense. It reminded me of this speech by Reagan to the UN General Assembly.

"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world"

Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, 42nd General Assembly
September 21, 1987

[malthaussen]

153. Alien threat raises questions of brotherhood of all sapience.

Picking on the "aliens" as different is just like picking on any other sapient subspecies for being different.

I've always wanted to write a story where the aliens have been watching us for a long time, but this corner of the galaxy is so boring the project is left up to graduate students, who relieve the boredom from time to time by playing pranks on us. Seems as reasonable as any other theory. The problem with Fermi's paradox is that it assumes the aliens would be interested in making contact... because we Earthlings cannot imagine running into spare real estate and people and not immediately exploiting them.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

154. Like you, I think likewise

why the graduate class of Gliesse 582 keeps it's distance. Hubby has a darker take, we are violent critters.

[malthaussen]

155. Popular theory...

... but what if we are actually less violent than most? Think of all the ways our history could be drenched in even more blood, but wiser heads prevailed.

Of course, then one thinks of WWI, and suddenly hubby's take seems like the right one.

(Hey, only 6 more recs and you get another on the top list in one day!)

-- Mal

[gordianot]

183. H.G. Wells had the right idea about pathogens imagine any alien or human exposed to alien pathogens.

Even going to Mars apparently void of life is a risk. One way around that would be develop a hybrid creature immune the pathogens of both species. It may well be that human and alien species will never be able to come in actual physical contact. There is place like home.

[nadinbrzezinski]

184. And likely, if and when we do, it will be with drones and robots

if we are able to break FTL, and an alien culture has done that. why would they talk to us?

If they decided to go to war with us, the requirements to do that are so immense that sci fi writers might be able to imagine, but there is no engineering in place right now. So our chances are next to nil

[gordianot]

186. Even if an alien culture were able able to travel here strong odds are we are toxic.

Overcoming microbes on an entire planet is as likely as developing a FTL drive. There is a possibility of a very old wandering species that no longer has a home world and likes to plant seeds. They would have to have monumental patience. and tolerance to boredom of epic proportions

[nadinbrzezinski]

188. The biology is there as a problem

but my point is if you have the technology to harness the energy of stars, this is the level of engineering and physics we are talking about, you will be able to drive puny humans to extinction in short order. I am willing to bet that if that is your level of tech, and you have an aggressive stance, HAZMAT control, biologic and genetic manipulation is child's play.

Of course the only reason I think you would need to do that would be a resource hunt. If you play 40k think something like Tyranids, able to incorporate foreign biology. Of all those sci fi games, that is the only Alien being that seems likelier, but we are talking of a biology that has evolved to do that.

[Savannahmann]

147. Punch Cards

Interesting Note. I remember reading that Voyager I or II had ended up off the expected course slightly. I think it was a fraction of a degree or so. But someone wanted to know why NASA had mis calculated it. They wanted to figure out what assumed value was not correct. So they rounded up as much information that they could find on the original design and mission plan. It was helped by the discovery in a closet of several boxes of information. The problem was that the data was all on punch cards. They didn't have a working reader, and if they had a working reader, they didn't have a machine that would talk to the reader. If they did have that, they didn't have any idea what order the cards were supposed to be in or even if they had all the cards.

They exceeded the budget of $1 Million dollars just figuring out how impossible it would be to even ask the question. After a while they decided that it was best left alone, and moved on to other things.

Space Cowboys for real.

[heaven05]

113. yep, yep!

my favorite place in any school/college I attended. Cafeteria second.

[malthaussen]

117. You had a college cafeteria that produced edible food?

I never heard of such a thing!

-- Mal

[RKP5637]

236. We used to get lots of mystery meet with brown gravy on it, with a side dish of

corn and apple sauce, green or red jello for desert, and a 1/2 pint of milk, one slice of bread with a square of butter. Chocolate mild was deluxe on some days. I think it was 21 cents, and you could run a tab. Actually, thinking back, the food wasn't that bad ... but the mystery meat, we never could figure out what that was.

[malthaussen]

286. Some things man was not meant to know... n/t

[RKP5637]

288. We used to get something else about once per week. I guess it was some kind of

chipped beef in a gravy on a stale hunk of bread. We used to call it 'sh** on a shingle.' Yep, as you say! "Some things man was not meant to know..."

[heaven05]

285. well

there were a lot of different eating places on campus. LOL. Some were like you suggest though.

[passiveporcupine]

120. Writing college research papers

before computers. YEP!

[CTyankee]

151. I was in my late 50s when I went back for a Master's. Even then, in 2000

it was much easier than when I was an undergrad. By 2000 there at least was Google which I was referred to by my much younger coworkers. But I remember putting all my papers on 3x5 floppy disks, which I loved because I could carry around my "papers" to the library and work on them there and at home. I found that to be very liberating!

[ET Awful]

122. Not only do I remember those, but despite not having used it in years, I still recall 920

as being my favorite number in the Dewey Decimal system (biographies) .

[blackspade]

123. Still in use in many archives that I frequent!

[tooeyeten]

124. Afternoons

And Saturday at the library as a kid, than many days during college. I love the library and books.

[Skittles]

125. ME, ME!!!

yes INDEED

[Skidmore]

129. I used to work in the school library when I was in high school

I typed those cards for an hour each day on an Olivetti manual typewriter. I went on to do the same thing for a while in a college job.

[mgardener]

130. Took twice

as long to do the research then it did to write the paper!

And index cards. Who remembers those???

[Metro135]

131. They still have card catalogs

at the New York Library for the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center. I use them frequently!

[Mass]

132. I remember this. It was a long time ago. I was still young then.\nt

[Shrike47]

136. I remember card catalogs fondly.

My first part time job was shelving books at the library.

The great thing about the card catalog system for fiction was that if you couldn't remember how to spell an author's name, you could look at every card around what you thought it was until you found the right name.

[Javaman]

137. One day, about 3 years ago, I passed a large dumpster...

in it were index cards from the library.

I walked in and inquired about them.

the librarian told me, "they had been in storage for about 2 years and they were just taking up room. computers replaced the need for an index".

and so it goes. :/

[rppper]

138. It pre-dates color images!!! Yikes!!!

Glad for the invention of colors in the early 90s...those were God awful days back in the black and white 70s & 80s!

[nadinbrzezinski]

142. I personally like good black and white photography

I even engage in it from time to time.

[rppper]

169. Brings back memories of high school....

I blew through a lot of B/W film doing yearbook shoots, but I took a lot of pics of burned out mobile homes, old barns and houses, old railroad yards and unused tracks that dotted the scenery in rural NE Texas....the detail is much more precise than color shots...

It was all shot on a Pentax k1000...loved that camera! So simple to use!

[nadinbrzezinski]

172. Hubby used his K1000 for military photography

his was mounted on an M-16.

I started with an Oly DSLR system. I don't remember the model, loved that thing to death.

[amandabeech]

144. I had a sweater exactly like that in ivory,

but I wore it with a turtleneck and slacks or jeans.

I can smell those file cards now.

[Jakes Progress]

152. Ahhhh. Some of the best hours in my life.

[denbot]

156. Dewey!!!

Yes we do..

[tea and oranges]

157. Ex-Researcher Here

Post-It Notes! So much better than the color-coded rubber bands I used to keep around my wrist that would sometimes pull hairs. Ouch.

[nadinbrzezinski]

159. I remember that. Graduate thesis advisor recommended it.

[tea and oranges]

182. Rubber Bands

At academic libraries you could always tell the grad students & the pro's by the bands around their wrists.


BTW, to address some confusion in the thread: the Dewey system is used in public libraries & most k-12 schools. Library of Congress, which is easily expandable & greatly nuanced is what colleges, universities & (duh) the Library of Congress use.

[kath]

271. I'm old enough to remember all the things mentioned in this thread so far, but I don't get the color

- coded rubber band thing. Explain, please?

[tea and oranges]

291. Rubber Band Thing Is

Totally low tech - you placed the (large) rubber bands around the relevant pages of a book. Let's say you're researching the history of the Iraq War (!) you could use red bands for info on Bush, blue for Cheney, green for general info, etc.

It worked, but Post-Its? What an improvement!

[LoisB]

158. In my day the file cases were all wood and didn't have the "fancy" handles.

[wryter2000]

160. Oh, lordy

The ed/psych library at UC Berkeley

[liberal_at_heart]

164. I used those in elementary school.

[Shandris]

167. Don't forget prehistoric newspaper archives!

"Oh sure, we have those. You just need to go over there and use the microfiche."

[DeSwiss]

170. K&R!!!

- Bibliophile of the First Water here!!!!

The 10 Shortest Books Ever Written

1. Gun Control for The New Millennium: NRA Handbook
2. Career Opportunities for Liberal Arts Majors
3. Royal Family's Guide to Good Marriages
4. Everything Men Know About Women
5. Cooking Gourmet Dishes With Tofu
6. A Plan For Prohibition In Australia
7. Safe Places to Travel in the USA
8. The Code of Ethics for Lawyers
9. 1000 Years of German Humour
10. The Fat, Lard, and Cream Diet

[No Vested Interest]

171. I constructed and produced (read: typed) catalogue cards as cataloger in the 70's.

I never wanted to be a cataloger, but was offered the part-time job with the local Historical Society while I was getting my Library Science degree.
I also filed the cards after producing them.
After a few years, the format for catalogue cards changed and I knew it was time to move on.

Today I only infrequently visit a library or read books, because everything I need is online and more current than most (but not all) of the materials offered in libraries.

[malthaussen]

174. Dang, I did that as a volunteer in High School...

... and you managed to get paid for it? You devil!

-- Mal

[No Vested Interest]

175. No need for envy - the pay wasn't that great. - just pin money really.

You, on the other hand, probably got out of some classes - not all bad, either.

[malthaussen]

177. Not to mention the hot girl I worked with...

... which was the reason I became a Library Aide to begin with.

-- Mal

[No Vested Interest]

187. Well, that's another story...... nt

[seaglass]

173. I bought one of those...lol. It's been sitting in my cellar for about 10 years while I try to

figure out what to do with it.

[asjr]

181. I had a book of lined paper and a No. 2 pencil.

[eppur_se_muova]

191. I helped maintain one of those ...

Data from the old cards had to be entered into a computer database (hand-keyboarded) and new cards printed out. Then each day's worth of new cards had to be inserted into the right location in the catalog and the old card pulled. At the end of the project, the card catalog was up-to-date, but also now duplicated in the database. A couple of years later I believe they got rid of the hard-copy catalog.

[northoftheborder]

193. I remember those, carbon paper, manual typewriters, real ink pens: the age of paper

[hunter]

197. When I was in college the card catalog was still actively maintained.

The "dumb terminal" computerized system was new technology but sometimes there were not enough terminals for everyone and it was much easier to share the card files:

"Excuse me while I grab this drawer, thanks..."

Heck, it doesn't seem that long ago I could break out onto the internet on the electronic "card catalogs" at university libraries and even the San Francisco public library.

Maybe they've closed and locked those doors years ago, but I wouldn't know. I've got an old laptop that does WiFi.

[elleng]

198. Me. and then I went to law school!!!

[Blue Owl]

204. I can smell it now!

And remember the check-out cards, where you could see the names of everyone who checked out the book prior?

[davekriss]

208. Ha! I remember well...

Omg! That means I'm old!!

[pacalo]

211. Thank goodness for progress.

[nadinbrzezinski]

214. Yes and no, next week we are going to cover covering disasters

and I am emphasizing the fact that my online scanner is lovely, until the net goes down.

[pacalo]

222. I hope you don't have any problems when you're doing your job.

Still, isn't it nice to have info at your fingertips rather than having just limited windows of free time to visit the library. The computer is like having a set of encyclopedia & a Xerox machine any time, day or night, that you need them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

224. Most of the time

But we really need to realize that one major disaster and we well be back to analog even if for a little while. Our solution is a not so cheap physical scanner for that issue. Absolute worst case, I don't think we'll have to worry about it.

[ProfessorGAC]

213. I Had to Learn Dewey and LOC

The weird thing was, i never was in a library that used LOC. Ever!
GAC

[llmart]

247. Academic libraries use LOC.

To be clear, the Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress System are classification systems that are still used today. The picture in the post shows how you we used to have to find the Dewey or LOC number of a particular item.

[petronius]

218. One of the things I like best about the Los Angeles Central Library is how

the elevators and elevator shafts are papered with the old cards - it's a very nice nod to the history...

http://www.lapl.org/branches/central-library/departments/art-architecture-central

[TxDemChem]

220. 31...I remember those cards

Heck, I even remember my library ID number from elementary school. That's a throwback, but a fond one!

[spanone]

221. dewey decimal....

like yesterday....i wish

[muntrv]

226. I'm 44 and I remember those days too. The microfiche was also fun.

[Baitball Blogger]

229. I feel sorry for all the people who never had to go through those catalogs to hunt down

books in the stacks. Now, that was power.

[baldguy]

230. In my day...

[LiberalElite]

232. I DO! nt

[RKP5637]

234. Ahhhhh, the smell of fresh mimeographed copies!!! I still remember well in grade school, we

were always so excited when our teacher brought in fresh mimeographed copies for tests, handouts, etc. No, I never did eat paste! I remember well the huge mimeograph machine in the principals office. It was a small school, I don't think she even had a secretary, I guess she ran the copies for the teachers.

[Jim Lane]

235. Ah, the card catalog plus open-stack libraries.

Whether it was Dewey Decimal or LC, the card catalog could give you the location of a book that would probably have what you needed. Then, if that book didn't happen to be on the shelf, or if it turned out to be not quite what you needed, you were in the right spot for poking around and seeing what was nearby.

I didn't like the libraries where you had to request the book and they'd bring it to you (or tell you it was unavailable). They deprived you of the opportunity of poking around the stacks.

[Hippo_Tron]

242. The card catalog was digital by the time I was using it, but I still made much use of the library...

There's still a vast amount of human knowledge available only in book form and it's going to be that way for several more years.

[laundry_queen]

243. All I can say

is I can't express how thankful I am that I'm in university post-card catalog era.

Our school's website has the entire library of research from many different areas online now. I can look up any scholarly articles I choose. I can write an entire term paper from the comfort of my bedroom. It's great. No slogging it out in the library for hours gathering research. (and I DO remember doing that, since this is my second time around in university) They even help you cite stuff. Just press the cite button, LOL (yeah, I know you have to actually know what you are doing because the citing software sometimes mixes up names.)Seriously, university research is a piece of cake now.

[Ilsa]

244. Research was a treasure hunt for knowledge. nt

[efhmc]

246. I loved the card catalogue.

[blkmusclmachine]

249. DDS

[Martin Eden]

251. I remember seeing that, but ...

... I just went to the library to meet girls. The good old days were better than trying to get lucky in a cyber chat room.

[nadinbrzezinski]

252. I admit, nobody ever hit on me at the library.

[GP6971]

254. And library's

Were always cool in the summer...,.temperature wise. At least where I grew up

[tandot]

256. You know, I am almost 50 and I find the new way of googling so much more efficient

My almost 5 year old son asks for something I don't know ... and a couple of key strokes and I know the answer.

So much information so quickly retrieved ... while he is learning, I do, too

[sad-cafe]

259. aw lost art form mind you

suffice to say today's teens won't ever know.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

260. Microfiche, 8mm movies, slide projectors, dittos and transparency overheads. I remember them all

And I'm 35.

I miss the Dewey Decimal System.

[bigwillq]

262. 36 (nt)

[csziggy]

265. Here's an age check - I could have been part of the demise of card catalogs

After I got my degree (BS with a double major in Library Science and Anthropology) the one job I was offered in my degree field was a temporary position to try out computer cataloging at the local university library. There would have been a direct computer linkage to the Library of Congress cataloging computer.

There were several problems with the job - it was temporary with no leave time, no benefits, no promise of future employment. I had never worked with computers and was not sure if I would like it. We'd just gotten married, made an offer on property, had planned a month long trip across country, and I had bought horses for starting a breeding operation. With no leave time, I would have had to completely change my life plans and for a temporary job it just didn't seem worth it.

I bought my first computer a number of years later and learned that I liked working with computers. Of course that Apple ][ was completely different that whatever system I might have been given at the library but I have adapted to various computer operating systems over the years with no problem.

Occasionally I wonder how different my life would have been if I had not raised horses and run a farm for my life's work. But I don't regret my choice - I'd be a different person now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

266. I am glad you chose to follow your dream though

[csziggy]

267. I am too - I would have regretted not living my dream more

But now that I cannot physically work with the horses and have had lots of medical problems because of the hard work on the farm, I wonder how different my life would be now if I had just played with my horses on the weekends.

Now I am building new dreams to work on for the rest of my life. If I live as long as my parents, I have half my life longer to live so I have plenty of time to achieve more dreams!

[nadinbrzezinski]

268. It is always good to have dreams.

And to remain an optimist.

[ReRe]

269. I do. ;-)

The Library was my salvation as a kid.

[R B Garr]

272. Yes, that's how I got through college. That, and reading the Congressional Record in the library

for my papers.

Those were the days, actually!

[DesertDiamond]

273. I wasn't born yet!!!! But seriously, finding the book I want on a computer just doesn't compare.

[Live and Learn]

275. Can't say I miss that.

I remember when the dreaded assignment of "research paper" or "term paper" meant a seemingly lifetime of hours spent in the library with that index box, encyclopedias and actually writing out what you found because you could neither check out many research materials and copying machine weren't around yet.

Not to mention the manual typing of the actual paper. I have memories of myself flinging a typewriter across the room on a late night "term paper" assignment.

[gtar100]

276. Back when research actually burned calories.

I miss that.

[MarianJack]

277. Almost 59 here.

The?we were a mainstay!

PEACE!

[gollygee]

278. I remember those sweaters too.

I worked in a library in high school so I remember them well.

[DiverDave]

281. Dive Tables?

Now its a computer, but batteries die at inconvenient times



Plan your dive and dive your plan.

[Greybnk48]

287. I really miss that.

I enjoyed searching for and looking up books that way, much more than on the computer.

[JohnnyRingo]

289. Type in "Google 1998" and hit enter.

I know it's a distraction from your point, but Google went online that year. Searching the above phrase returns the now famed search engine to the much different format used that year.

As for the card catalogue and the Dewey Decimal System, I never really got a grasp on it in grade school. As a fan of non-fiction science books, I found it easier for my lazy self to just ask the librarian where to look. I was trying to protect her job. LOL

[ChiciB1]

290. WOW, Bring Back The Memories!

You certainly have a HOT TOPIC here. So many of us remember way back when and many times it makes me very sad! So many of us are still alive, are quite intelligent and remember well. Was it really that long ago??

Yes, there was upheaval but it all seemed so much more simple! Right now my brain is twisted into a knot because I'm still using XP 2002! I've synced my Mac Book & iPhone to it and am going crazy trying to figure out WHAT I need to do!

It was nice knowing just where to go and what you needed. Now, I can't keep up with the changes coming down the pike almost every month!