Old-style Ruth Manning-Sanders library book borrower's card

Remember when library circulation cards looked like this?

This is the card that's still tucked away in the interior pocket of my copy of A Book of Spooks and Spectres by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

The book was previously part of the Metro Nashville Public Schools library system and, according to a stamp on the outside edge of the book's pages, was housed at Joelton Elementary School.

And, in the early 1990s, some students named April, Chris, Angela and Derrick checked this book out. (If, perhaps, more students had checked it out, it might have remained on the library's shelves.)

This circulation card was made and sold by Brodart, which has been in the library supplies and furnishings business since 1939, according to the history page on its website. In a neat twist (for me), it turns out that it's primarily based in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

In fact, you can still get the borrower's card pictured in today's post from Brodart! The cost is $30 for 1,000, or $3.15 for a "convenience pack" of 100. (I'm curious how many of these Brodart still sells, as libraries become more digital.)

As for the book itself, A Book of Spooks and Spectres contains 23 international folk and fairy tales, as retold by Manning-Sanders. Some of the tales include "Old Tommy and the Spectre" (from England); "Yi Chang and the Spectres" (from Korea); "Rubizal and the Miller's Daughter" (from Bohemia); "Tummeldink" (from Schleswig-Holstein); "The Little Old Man in the Tree" (from Yugoslavia); and "The Lake" (from Estonia). That last one is an odd and delightful tale in which a lake, tired of the annoying villagers who live nearby, rises up into the air — fish and all — and flies off to a new, more peaceful, home.

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