In part because of the Eaton Fire, I've been way behind on filing my index cards. Today I blew through a massive stack of about 300 index cards!
Category: Social Stream
Medium-weight colored blank punched catalog cards
blue, green, buff, ivory, white, salmon
Stocking stuffers anyone? Santa brought 6,000 index cards down the proverbial chimney today. Should have enough now to index all the books in the house?
I know what Japanese planner this guy uses.
No, you’re not dreaming, that is a blue Menorahcorn decoration on the lawn across the way. 🕎🦄🤩
Brodart has recently discontinued their salmon card index cards with pre-drilled holes #23-188-218. This has been a shift since the summer of 2025, though they’re still carrying the standard salmon index cards (without predrilled holds for card catalog rods).
A conversation with their customer service team seems to indicate there aren’t plans for discontinuing their other cards (blue, green, ivory, white, and buff), but: caveat emptor as they no longer list their card catalog furniture or their charging trays on their website, their Dewey Decimal tabbed cards are now gone, and Demco recently quit carrying their buff/red-lined Library of Congress cards this past year.
Incidentally, they’re doing a 20% discount on their index cards (and related circulation supplies) for the holidays right now, so stock up if you need them.
In honor of Melvil Dewey’s 174th birthday yesterday, I’ve just purchased 6,000 cards in an attempt to get them to continue stocking them all and to have a happier 2026.
Keep your A6 notebooks, pens, and essentials organized on the go with the Field Folio A6. Durable, vegan waxed canvas, slim design, and flexible pockets—perfect for travel, journaling, or everyday carry.
I recently asked the kind folks at Lochby “if the Folio A6 will comfortably fit 25-50 standard 4 x 6″ index cards which are slightly larger than an A6 notebook? If not, is it something you might consider for some of us ‘Hipster PDA’ tribe members in the future?”
Erring on the side of caution their customer service replied, “Unfortunately, since the Field Folio A6 zips up, there’s no way to fit this many index cards in it without the potential for damaging them when zipping it up. But I’ll take note of your suggestion and pass it on to our product development team so we can consider it as well as gauge interest.”
Because I often use A6 sized notebooks, I couldn’t resist adding to my Lochby collection, so I went ahead and ordered it anyway.
It arrived in the post yesterday. Today I’m happy to report that it actually will accommodate 4 x 6″ index cards reasonably well. I can comfortably fit about 30 cards into the right side pocket and still have room to tuck a Hobonichi A6 notebook into the folio and still zip it shut handily.
Because I usually have a few pre-glued decks of index card “notebooks” sitting around, I tried one of these and can happily report that the back cover/board fits into the right pocket easily (just as you’d tuck the back cover of a notebook into it) and works well with the Lochby A6 folio! (The center elastic bands are slightly smaller and fairly tight, and could work with these glued decks too, but will tend to cut the glue at the ends, so one should take care here or carefully only glue the center 5 inches of the deck for this use case.) I suspect that if one had a plastic wallet-photo type holder, it might work well in this, particularly if you’re carrying around some of your daily use cards in addition to blank cards for future use.
I now have definitive written proof of a numeric indexing system (delineated in a popular textbook for secretaries, and published by a company which did significant business in Germany) from the mid-1920s with increasingly more detail into the 1940s and a fifth edition published in 1950. It’s exactly like, but notably predates, Niklas Luhmann’s alphanumeric system which he started in 1952. I’ll write up some of the details shortly with specific references, but thought I’d tease it here a bit first.
The third ever IndieWebCamp San Diego with two days of independent open distributed web talks, breakouts, and hack sessions. Bring your website or setup a new domain on the spot.
This has been one of my favorite events for the past two years, and after a rough 2025, this is a great way to cap off the year.
Even better, Tantek has already suggested a session on card catalogs that’s right up my alley: https://indieweb.org/2025/SD#Session_ideas.
An early 21st century textbook on filing and indexing practices geared toward office workers. First edition, 1932.
The first section is on the rules of alphabetization and indexing to standardize the space of ordering cards for both people’s names and company names.
The second section covers some history on basic filing techniques and then goes into alphabetic, geographic, numeric, and subject indexing methods. The final sections cover the L.B Automatic (Library Bureau), the triple check method, and various other special filing methods as well as maintaining and transferring files for long term storage. Illustrations of these various methods help to visualize how they worked in practice.
This text isn’t as interesting or as comprehensive as the works of J. Kaiser from earlier in the century.
Read on 2025-11-16.
