2008 Woodie Awards
Dealing with cards
Courtney Davids - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 10/25/05 Section: Arts
- Page 1 of 1
Resurrecting the retro, the Main Library North Lobby Exhibition Hall will demonstrate the artistry of the outmoded, the technologically passé, the typewriter-typed: the card catalogue.
The display is only possible because of a 36-hour window this weekend in which the exhibition hall will be between exhibits. Filling the space will be "card art" created by K-12 students from around the country, and surrounding it will be a number of card-related events from 10 a.m. until noon on Saturday.
In 2004, when the library made the transition from drawers of decks to a digital point-and-click cataloguing system, the Dewey decimal classification cards were deemed to be obsolete and scheduled for destruction. Seeing the potential for a plethora of creative opportunities, a team of dedicated book-conservation and -preservation workers salvaged one-third of the cards - approximately 1 million - and set about distributing them to various community members with the hope of raising a creative phoenix from the ashes of progress.
Students from Ohio to California got involved, submitting their creations by mail to be included in the show. Also on Saturday will be several activities in which viewers can participate. A "boat float," in which kids can fold a card into a boat and float it in a small wading pool, a communal constructing of a "house of cards," and a public "adopt-a-cart" pull are among the featured events.
At the beginning of this academic year, pupils in seven local schools and several educational institutions across the country were given cards and no guidelines other than to get creative and transform these relics into something new.
"I suggested the cards could be drawn on, painted, or otherwise decorated to reflect images of the book title, for instance, or the cards could be joined in some manner to produce a mobile or other object," said project organizer and UI book-repair supervisor Susan Hansen.
Kristin Baum, an assistant conservator in the UI preservation unit, said school-age children were included in order to make the cARTalog project more participant inclusive but also as a way to expose the younger generation to a fast-fading feature of library culture.
"Most of these kids don't know what a card catalogue is, and by allowing them to explore the medium in a creative way, they get a sense of how information is communicated, and it makes them curious," she said.
E-mail DI reporter Courtney Davids at:
courtney-davids@uiowa.edu
The display is only possible because of a 36-hour window this weekend in which the exhibition hall will be between exhibits. Filling the space will be "card art" created by K-12 students from around the country, and surrounding it will be a number of card-related events from 10 a.m. until noon on Saturday.
In 2004, when the library made the transition from drawers of decks to a digital point-and-click cataloguing system, the Dewey decimal classification cards were deemed to be obsolete and scheduled for destruction. Seeing the potential for a plethora of creative opportunities, a team of dedicated book-conservation and -preservation workers salvaged one-third of the cards - approximately 1 million - and set about distributing them to various community members with the hope of raising a creative phoenix from the ashes of progress.
Students from Ohio to California got involved, submitting their creations by mail to be included in the show. Also on Saturday will be several activities in which viewers can participate. A "boat float," in which kids can fold a card into a boat and float it in a small wading pool, a communal constructing of a "house of cards," and a public "adopt-a-cart" pull are among the featured events.
At the beginning of this academic year, pupils in seven local schools and several educational institutions across the country were given cards and no guidelines other than to get creative and transform these relics into something new.
"I suggested the cards could be drawn on, painted, or otherwise decorated to reflect images of the book title, for instance, or the cards could be joined in some manner to produce a mobile or other object," said project organizer and UI book-repair supervisor Susan Hansen.
Kristin Baum, an assistant conservator in the UI preservation unit, said school-age children were included in order to make the cARTalog project more participant inclusive but also as a way to expose the younger generation to a fast-fading feature of library culture.
"Most of these kids don't know what a card catalogue is, and by allowing them to explore the medium in a creative way, they get a sense of how information is communicated, and it makes them curious," she said.
E-mail DI reporter Courtney Davids at:
courtney-davids@uiowa.edu
