[Ads-l] "filing above the rod"

[Laurence Horn]

I agree that this would make for an elegant metaphor.  Advance kudos for anyone who can come up with a natural, or at least plausible, occurrence.  (My wife, a retired librarian, is familiar with the practice but not the term.)

LH

> On Oct 8, 2015, at 9:16 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> 
> Yes indeed.  I had encountered the Smithsonian article and passed it on to another email list, and one commenter there used the phrase.
> 
> Joel
> 
>      From: ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
> Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "filing above the rod"
> 
> Your suggestion has been made just in time, Joel. The card catalog is
> being relegated to the realm of metaphors and similes.
> 
> Website: Smithsonian.com
> Article title: The Card Catalog Is Officially Dead
> Article subtitle: Long live the card catalog
> Article author: Erin Blakemore
> Date: October 5, 2015
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.smithsonianmag.com_smart-2Dnews_card-2Dcatalog-2Ddead-2D180956823_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=SqolRrxoowfJeGXcpQCGrFvnE7er3WBdRoNIYbu0TPQ&s=qNaxYlIGyX3xmZpiKnRKZk8KGQ8VbFum3Pn-pcIN6qU&e= 
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> It's been a long time since most libraries were filled with card
> catalogs -- drawers upon drawers of paper cards with information about
> books. But now, the final toll of the old-fashioned reference system's
> death knell has rung for good: The library cooperative that printed
> and provided catalog cards has officially called it quits on the
> old-fashioned technology.
> 
> The news comes via the The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The
> cooperative, which created the world's first shared, online catalog
> system back in 1971, allowed libraries to order custom-printed cards
> that could then be put in their own analog cataloging systems. Now,
> says OCLC, it’s time to lay a "largely symbolic" system that’s well
> past its prime to rest.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 2:47 PM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:      Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      "filing above the rod"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Placing a catalog card in its presumed place in a library card catalog, but=
>>   above the rod so that another, perhaps more experienced librarian can chec=
>> k if it's been filed in the proper place.
>> 
>> This seems like a neat metaphor for doing some task in a manner that permit=
>> s a second person easily to find the result and check its correctness.=C2=
>> =A0 But we'll have to make it so -- the dozen Google hits I find for "filin=
>> g above the rod" all refer to library catalogs.=20
>> 
>> 
>> Joel
>> 
>> 
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