Appreciation post: The old library in St. Louis had a display of hand-bound ledgers from the 1800s.

I mean, seeing the original raised bands and the hand-marbled endpapers up close, especially on a ledger from 1872, really made me appreciate how durable those old techniques are, and has anyone else found inspiration in unexpected places like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

shane65516d ago

They'd be horrified that our most permanent records are just patterns on a hard drive. All that solid craft traded for pure convenience.

the_patricia26d ago

Look at those old ledgers and tell me, what do you think the scribes would be most surprised to learn about how we keep records today? I keep picturing someone from 1872 trying to understand a cloud server or even a basic spreadsheet, and it makes our modern stuff feel so flimsy and temporary by comparison.

jessicajackson26d ago

Honestly the_patricia, they'd probably be shocked we can copy a whole column of numbers with two clicks. All that careful ink work just gone in a second! But you're right, the flimsy part gets me, like my most important files are just... lights in a building somewhere. It feels less real than a big leather book, even if I can search it in half a second. They'd think we were wizards with terrible handwriting.