Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Blog Stuff: A secondhand bleg...

One of my favorite bloggers has a request but has so far got no joy:
Remember when your library card had a little metal tab with numbers on it, and they'd put it on a little machine and insert the card from your book selection into a little muncher slot, and it would munch off the bottom side edge of the card a bit? I want one of those machines.
Surely somebody out there can help her out. I'm drawing a blank, which is odd because I was on the shoot-on-sight list of every local library by the time I was fourteen. (I don't think I still have any overdue books from back then, but I haven't looked under the bed recently.)

I do seem to faintly recall that the library in Dallas, when we used to go visit kin there, had a cool gizmo at the checkout desk that the ones back home didn't have, but I've slept since then.

15 comments:

Rustmeister said...

With the way libraries are going under these days, I'm sure there is one to be had.

Tam said...

Amazon killed the library card
In my hand and in my heart
We can't check out, we've gone too far...

Unknown said...

Whoa, talk about a blast from the past! You can probably find them in the same department with the coal-oil powered magic lantern machines, but I seem to recall those were sold by a company called Brodart...

Merl said...

Try calling smaller libraries that haven't moved to new location since that time. If they ever had one it's probably collecting dust in a corner.

Anonymous said...

I'm still snickering at "muncher slot".

phlegmfatale said...

COOLNESS! Thank you ever so, Tam - someone has already commented me a good lead which I intend to pursue in a hot manner after I recover from last night's and tonight's excesses. Holly & I were talking about you when Leslie sang "Zombie killer" last night(Shoot 'em in the brain).

And thanks for the giggle, pdb - my eyes were SO on the prize that I didn't even see the humor of "muncher slot" - I guess I'm too serious about my gadget fetish.

Rob said...

My library growing up didn't use the punch method. Instead, the librarian took a picture of the back flap of the book with your card next to it, and at the end of the day all the branch libraries sent in reels of microfilm to the central library for processing.

Matt G said...

Tam, yer killin' me-- what's the reference?

Dr. StrangeGun said...

My connections have told me that she's looking for a Gaylord Charging Machine.

Anonymous said...

Matt G - the Buggles, sometime around or before 1980 -

"Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car,
We can't rewind we've gone too far"

Ah, the good old days of meaningful music... or something...

staghounds said...

I LOOOOVE that song! The piano and the violins at the end, "oh, wa-oh...".

I have like 6 versions. Including a punk cover ans "Internet Killed the Video star".

lizbeast said...

Wasn't that song for the first MTV video - when they actually played music videos all day and night? Love that song! Good luck with the library-thinga-majig hunt...

Ambulance Driver said...

Yep, it actually was the very first video played on MTV.

lizbeast said...

*sigh* I feel old.

Anonymous said...

Gaylord Charging Machine?

LMAO. Every time we drove by the GAYLORD building as a kid, we'd all snicker, hoping mom wouldn't hear!