According to the inscription on the title page, my friend received MISS SNIFF from her grandmother on Christmas Eve 1946. But my favorite part of the book was the back endpaper where, many decades ago, my friend affixed a cardboard pocket labeled JOLLY CLUB LIBIARY (sic.) Inside the pocket was a construction paper card which she had laboriously lined with a ruler, providing plenty of space for the names of all the throngs who might someday want to borrow the book. Only one name was scrawled on the circulation card -- my friend’s little brother.
Well, I must admit that we had a good laugh over this. My friend has no recollection of a "Jolly Club" or even making pockets for her books. But MISS SNIFF preserved that bit of history. Imagine: back in the mid-1940s, a little girl was gluing pockets in books and checking them out to borrowers...and six decades later she is STILL working in a libiary -- I mean library. Who’d believe it?
I would.
The trouble with people sharing their childhood books -- and their childhood secrets -- with you is that you then feel obliged to turn around and share your books -- and your childhood secrets -- with them. You see, even though I chortled over my friend’s youthful hobby, and teased her unmercifully about it all afternoon, I had an even bigger secret to hide. No, I didn’t paste pockets in books or loan them out to my little brother. I was even worse. ...I was a juvenile cataloger. It’s true. I assigned call numbers to all my books and either printed them on stickers or typed them (using one finger) on my fafher’s old manual typewriter and then taped them to the spine of every volume. Look above at my childhood copy of FOLLOW MY LEADER by James B. Garfield. If you squint (or click on the image to enlarge it) you may even be able to read the call number taped to the spine:
J
GAR
I divided fiction into six categories. PRE stood for preschool, E for easy readers, and J for middle-graders.
PT was “preteen” (what the??? Whoever HEARD of such a designation?)
Then there was YA for young adult and A for adult, though I can’t imagine having many -- or any -- adult books when I was ten or eleven years old.
Beneath each of those headings were the first three letters of the author’s last name.
It gets worse.
My specialty was nonfiction.
I found a book on the Dewey Decimal system at the public library and cataloged my books accordingly.
You probably can’t read the call numbers on the labels, but I’ll tell you what they say (and please note that they are lined-up in correct call number order!) BOOK BINDING BY HAND by Laurence Town is labeled 025.7 T (T is the “cutter letter” for the author’s last name.) KNOW YOUR SCOTTISH TERRIER by Earl Schneider is 367 S. WEBSTER'S NEW DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS is 424 W and TRACING YOUR ANCESTORS by Anthony J. Camp is 529 C. I have no idea if those call numbers are correct but they were the best I could do back when I was a PT.
It gets worser.
When I was about eleven, my aunt gave me a large collection of books from her own library. Many were purchased abroad and had fine bindings. But did that stop me from slapping stickers on all those leather and vellum covers? Nope. I not only stuck those labels on the spine of every single book -- even the 1827 Bible! -- but I also PRESSED DOWN FIRMLY, as the instructions on the box of stickers directed. Which is why I now have books like this fine copy of ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
whose call number (610.2) can’t be peeled, scraped, steamed or sandblasted off. And yes, I do feel a bit melancholy about that.
Over the years I have been able to remove the labels from many of the others, though they left scars:
Still, who among us -- human or book -- gets through life without a few scars? Today, when I pick up one of my antiquarian volumes with the shadow of a sticker on the spine or a teenage paperback with its “YA” designation still Scotch-taped around the edge, it seems like destiny that, decades later, I ended up working in a library cataloging books. But that was never my plan. I wanted to WRITE books, not assign them call numbers. (...You know, I probably should have spent more time typing stories and less time typing stickers.) But no one could stop me back then. I was fascinated by books. I was driven. I...was a juvenile cataloger. And, after seeing my friend’s copy of MISS SNIFF with its pocket and charge-out card, I realize I wasn't the only one.
And if there were two of us, I imagine there were even more -- somewhere out there in the world.
Were you a kid cataloger too? If so, feel free to share your story here.
I’ve shown you my books. Now show me yours.
4 comments:
I think I had a Miss Sniff book as a kid... I'll have to do a post on the books I had a as a kid sometime this weekend.
Sorry I wasn't a cataloger, once I was about 5 and had stopped writing (or trying to write my name in my book). I tried to keep all my copies in the very best condition so no slapping stickers on my books!
Thanks for sharing! I think yours was a brilliant hobby (except for the pressing down firmly part). They could have made one of those photographic biographies about you--"A Very Young Cataloger."
I wasn't a cataloger, but many of our old family books have dates written on the front endpapers from when my sister and I would play Library. This game consisted of one person being the librarian and one person being the patron. The patron would choose a few books, and the librarian would write the date the book was "due" in the book. Switch roles. Read. Repeat.
I had my books listed in an Excel spreadsheet as a teenager. However last year I found some free book catalogue software on the Internet and use that now.
I didn't have a DDC to give them call numbers, but every book had a bibliographic number starting at 1 and going through to over 3100 now. (That way I knew how many books I owned since that was the first question asked of me when friends saw my bedroom).
I gave all books my version of subject headings. A was school. A1 meant boarding schools, boys, C=horses, D=Ships, F=arts, F1=Music and so on.
I only wrote my name and the book's number in the book, but the shelves had labels! The bookcase above my bed had shelves A to B and divided into sections 1-4. the selves under the window sill were similar. However I don't use this now!
...and yes, I work in a library...and have a librarian as a father...who has his own shelves aranged in rough DDC order...I couldn't help myself!
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