I’m studying more of the weird and wonderful punch card systems that flourished in specialized businesses, along the same lines as the McBee and Stanomatic.
Some of the books delve into library equipment, which included a few clever gadgets along with a lot of familiar stuff. Adjustable shelves and bookends haven’t changed since 1890, but most of the stamping and record-keeping has been digitalized.
Here’s a cute gimmick, the Pencil-Dater.
You’d attach the miniature date stamp to a pencil with the clip, and you’d fill the stamp with movable rubber type for today’s date. Then you could date every note made on a book or card by simply pushing down the stamp with an extra finger. A date across a note would serve as a sort of notary seal. Online forums indicate it was still used in recent decades.
Devised by the Milwaukee Public Library. Libraries no longer devise gadgets or furniture, they only devise contempt toward the peasants who are still devising gadgets and furniture.
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Hektographs were common in the ’50s.
Our elementary school had both a true mimeograph and a hektograph. When the teacher got tired of my smartassery and sent me to the office to run off some copies of a quiz, I had to use the hektograph. Only the adults were allowed to crank the mimeograph.
Not incidentally, the hektograph (also known as the jellygraph!) is another industrial use of gelatin.
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Finally, the magnificent Hammond Vari-Typer was popular in 1890 libraries.
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The larger the library the more numerous are the employés in the catalog department, and the more confusing to the eye of the reader the eccentricities of their individual handwritings, and the more need of the clear, simple, and uniform characters which the Hammond produces. While libraries possessing old catalogs are adopting typewritten cards, no library starting a new catalog can afford to do without it. We know of no library that has not found it a labor-saver, compensating for its cost many times over.
The Hammond gives perfect alignment, absolutely uniform impression and rapidity, has interchangeable types, admits any width of paper, is light and portable.
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The Hammond was unquestionably superior to the Sholes-Remington machine, but Remington won the battle. Perhaps because Remington also made battle tools for the government. The pencil-dater is mightier than the sword, but guns win every time.
Polistra's Mill 