Discards JF11 B53 V. 1-20 thru HG4930 M8

I knew there was a reason I couldn't fall asleep last night, too excited about the week to come.

Today we get rid of all 20 binders of Constitutions of the Countries of the World! Today is the best day of my life!

Man oh man, do these hail the high life of loose leaf filings. Indeed I used to brag about the war wounds these binders inflicted on me to the student assistants as I passed the loose leaf filings torch -- a prong punctured my palm one time, and I was proud to slap a bandaid on that bad boy.

If memory serves, this was one of the more obnoxious, but not difficult, loose leaf filings because if only one country got a new constitution, you had to replace the table of contents in all 20 volumes, and the binder mechanism for these was a particular pain in the ass (the three prongs would be consumed by an encompassing clip that was very difficult to latch and unlatch with the binder prongs consumed correctly). I remember after a particularly productive constitution producing period, there would be a couple of these stacked up, and at that point you had to remind yourself to only put in the most recent ToC in the front of the 20 binders!

Another stalwart loose leaf was the good old Morningstar binder, which was one of the easier ones from all sides. The method of filing was easy once you learned the rules, and the mechanism for the binder was easy to navigate as well.

Well, good bye old loose leaf buddies! I would say I will miss you, but I won't. Not a bit :)

Discards L 914.5 H57 1984 - HQ 1236 W455 1991

Last week I thought about Amy as I went through collecting the discards from the education section. This week I thought a lot about Carol as I went through the government information and legal resources section (JK is in this range, which I love because it's like "You wanna talk about state constitutions? JK 18 C7i -- just kidding bro!").

Truly truly all the things on this cart can go, and today is especially monumental because the mofo'ing Barclay's Official California Code of Regulations (Title 5, Education) is on this cart, and these dang binders were the bane of my existence when I had to do loose leaf filing. (Although I admire the mending job I did on the binders' hinges back in the day.) Indeed I mourn the transition from print reference sources, but I will NEVER miss filing loose leafs. Hallelujah!

I was surprised that we are getting rid of this one, just because the graphic design of the cover still occurs to me as decidedly current/teens (as in two-thousand-fifteen). It's from 1994!

Also I found a good example of how the UV rays from fluorescent lights bleach the color out of paper. This pink flag has been in this book for about 2 years, and look at the difference between the part that was exposed and that part that was inside the text block. (hashtag preservation lol)

I did have a heavy moment of reverie while working in the HVs, remembering that speech on methamphetamine I did for public speaking sophomore year. Sherise was working that Saturday, and even though I had used my 1+ years of library experience to search the catalog, I hadn't been able to find the sources I needed. She showed me this very section of the Reference Stacks, where the Encyclopedia of drugs, alcohol, & addictive behavior was and still is shelved. Here I sat, 12.5 years later, in the same place, with the same wonder on the topic, gripped with a mild mania that soon it would be all gone, that this familiar location would be gone.