Friday 3 March 2017

Library Cards


    Another old memory that was triggered while cleaning out the bookcase concerned some of  the children books I found.  They had been purchased back in the 1970‘s when I was teaching in the one room school on Takla Lake.  The isolated school (there were no roads connecting to the outside world, only flights) was a really bare-bone affair and there were very few educational resources for the students to use.  To remedy this situation, Joan and I bought books for the kids to read and look at.  (That part of education hasn’t changed, teacher’s still end up using their own money to buy school supplies for the students.)
    We decided to set up a “school library” with those books, so that the kids could take them home.  To keep track of where the book was,  I ordered some paper pockets and library cards and pasted them in the back of the books.  One shown in the photo.
    It seems these cards and pockets are now a thing of the past in regular public libraries also.  Book barcodes and information are now scanned in a computer.  I always used to like the cards in library books, it seemed like a good system, but I guess not as efficient as electronic technology.

My paintings can be seen at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

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