*see bottom

It's a rainy day, so what better to do than tackle my pile of ephemera for indexing. I don't know about you other libraries out there, but even in these times of internet, cloud storage, and electronic wizardry, we still have a card index, and it still gets used. It seems to be an anachronism amongst all the computer hardware we have, but we rather cherish it. Recently we had to clear it out, and amongst some of the cards removed were references to a home for unmarried mothers, complete with telephone number of local vicar. Also, a cross reference to pictures of rabbit warrens, for no discernable reason. Also, the meaning of the surname Sotherton. Also, the address of the Race Relations board. I fondly imagine a post-internet world where the true value of these cards will once again be felt.
They are also a record of librarians gone by - some cards quite wordy, and carefully cross-referenced, others terse and brief to the point of enigmatic (Smith - see Wetherby). They are always done with an eye to posterity - what will researchers of the future want to read about?
The powers-that-be were looking to rearrange the library recently, and were eyeing the card index as taking up too much space, but we hung onto it for now, so until some kind person has the time and the inclination to digitize all the cards (any takers?) then it will remain as a useful but slightly outmoded tool in the librarians' armoury.

*the title of this post is "Indexing" - see above for details.