It's hard for a librarian to resist this book about the card catalog, but I think loads of book lovers would find it an interesting and fun read. I mean, right at the beginning, there's a little pocket with a card in it! This book has more than 200 full-color images of original catalog cards, first edition book covers, photos from the Library of Congress archives, and a ton of information about libraries and the first cataloging systems up to the modern day. I found I was enjoying all the photos, but definitely learned some new things. For example, I didn't know that Thomas Jefferson adapted his cataloging scheme from Sir Francis Bacon's classification that started with the categories of Memory, Reason and Imagination.* Jefferson did later modify these to History, Philosophy and Fine Arts (although I think he would have kept the category of Imagination if he ever knew there would be Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman and other authors to come along).
This book is filled with interesting bits of information and some pretty cool photos. I liked the page about "Library Hand," a script that was taught to librarians so that all catalog cards were legible and had a standard appearance. I feel like I should make that my next New Year's resolution: learn Library Hand (and improve my sometimes messy scribbling). Fun book!
* I totally think this would be a cool way to organize my personal collection. Memory = History, Reason = other nonfiction and Imagination = all fiction.
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