Tribute to Old Library Cards

Being at the library for me was a sanctuary, a place not only to get your books and explore other
worlds but also a quiet place to escape.  It's the place where many creative ideas were incubated.
Only now in its absence I miss so much the card catalogs-beautifully typed, organized and displayed.  Much work and thought went into this filing system. I feel somehow a whole world having disappeared. If one could only imagine the excitement- as if I won the lottery- when I was volunteering for a school art auction project with my friend and the teacher asked if I would like to have a box of old library cards in the basement about to be tossed out. (THANK YOU Mr. Galvin! ) It was a treasure box for me.  It was meant to be in my hands to be restored, redistributed or otherwise just appreciated.  I gave them out to friends, donated a boxful to my favorite reuse center in San Francisco. Over the holidays I made little artpieces out of the old cards to put on gift boxes with high hopes they would be saved and generate the kind of emotion and nostalgia they did for me.
Here's to memories of the good old days...

Sharing my nostalgic "winning" of old library cards  with friends and
Scrap (reuse center for artists) in San Francisco 

My 2012 Holiday Tribute to the Library Card Catalog