We love seeing old card catalog cabinets used in design - isn't it a great homage to the libraries of our collective memories? Here's another way to remember the old cataloging system: by wallpapering walls with the cards themselves!
That's what the late artist Ann Chamberlain did at the San Francisco Public Library. She used actual old cards from the library to cover the walls in an art installation in 1996. Many of the type-written cards feature hand annotations:
What a great way to remember the past, create a beautiful texture on the wall, and do it all with materials that would have gone to waste otherwise when cataloging went digital.
Images: San Francisco Public Library Art, Music and Recreation Center
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Comments (3)
if a person loves words, and the house is their own, then bully for them to make their house so special for themselves. I rent apartments so I am stopped on all counts. One landlord even told me I could not hand pictures on wall, and I asked her if she had pictures on her walls at her own home. She said yes and then I asked her why she did that, and she said it made her happy to see the beauty. I said, what can I say? I wish I could see your wall. One young man had friends circle graphite onto his wall behind his computer and it was beautiful and inexspensive. sincerely, mary
I love the smell of a library, I bet these cards would impart that.
The Central Library in Los Angeles did the same thing in their elevator walls, only behind a sheet of glass.