The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #87071 Message #1623936
Posted By: Bill D
09-Dec-05 - 06:06 PM
Thread Name: BS: How Many Mudcat Members are Librarians?
Subject: RE: BS: How Many Mudcat Members are Librarians?
about paper folding: When I was a kid, I read somewhere that "you can't fold a piece of paper in half eight times" I think 8 was chosen to allow for large pieces of thin tissuepaper....but 6 is possible with common sizes and types. Try 7, and you'll see why 8 is beyond you...
(I worked as a student asst. in the Washington Univ. (St Louis) library in 1959-60...mostly shelving. It was interesting, because they were in the middle of changing over from Dewey Decimal to LC cataloging, and I had to pass a test of competence in both systems! This was a fairly old library, and in areas like the classics..(old English literary stuff and Greek plays, etc)..they had TONS of books, with Dewey numbers that ran 8-10 lines! It didn't take much of a mistake to lose a book. Every now & then whole areas would disappear as they were taken into to be recatalogued, repaired and and relocated.....and of course, the new location was constantly shifting as re-done volumes were sandwiched in!
It was also old enough that seldom accessed books...especially bound periodicals..(Journal of Alaskan Orchid Fanciers...etc.) were housed in the Sub-Basement Annex...which looked about like it sounds, a dark, musty, labyrinth down old stairs with bare light bulbs hanging now & then.
Wash. U. has since built a new library, but I'll bet it doesn't have quite the 'character' of the old one!