Day 226 – Old School Search Engine

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August 13, 2016 – Kids these days have it easy when it comes to sourcing information….. remember when we had to find information in the card catalogue? It worked, and it took time and thought. We still had to figure out the right search terms and keywords and the results weren’t as overwhelming in volume.

Card catalogues are a relic from the past, but they are still in use in a few places. Like here at the Vancouver Public Library in the sheet music section. That was a neat discovery that they haven’t been completely phased out. There is still information contained in some of the old catalogues that hasn’t yet been transcribed to digital media yet.

The Vancouver Public Library has regular tours, and even though I consider myself highly skilled in the library department, I learned about some pretty cool resources that I’d been completely unaware of in the VPL Weird and Wacky Tour. I’ve had a library card to this library since the mid 1980’s but Peter DeGroot showed us some wonderful treasures the library contains.

For instance, I did not know that one could take out sheet music. Actual sheet music not in books.

Or musical instruments. Keyboards, guitars, ukuleles, percussion instruments like bongos etc. I did not know that you could check those out either.

I did not know the library has filing cabinets full of newspaper clippings on an incredible number of topics, going back over 100 years.

And what an amazing map library, drawers of nautical charts, census maps, old survey maps.

Borrowers can check out tablets to access e-books.

They have book club kits.

And the Inspiration Lab completely blew me away and resulted in Kirk rushing downstairs for a library card! Recording booths, free for public use, one with a green screen!

Film scanners.

Equipment to digitize VHS tapes and cassette tapes.

I had no idea!

And probably the neatest thing the library has to loan out are Inspiration Passes – free passes, good for two weeks at a time, that allow the borrower free tickets to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Museum of Anthropology, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and many more fabulous cultural attractions in Vancouver!

The library has certainly grown up into something modern.

But the best part of all?

It’s still mostly filled with books 🙂