[Ads-l] "filing above the rod"

[Joel Berson]

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

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/card-catalog-dead-180956823/

[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
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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