A-sailing we will go!

Catalog card boats race across library pool Thomas Cooper Library’s card catalog has been in mothballs for years—replaced by a digital system—but several hundred of the cards came to life as boats, ships, and even a whale in the first-ever Catalog Card Boat Race.

Students, faculty, and staff used the obsolete cards to fashion vessels that ranged from simple to exquisite, including a model of a cruise ship, complete with on-deck swimming pool, and a replica of Captain Ahab’s Nantucket whaling ship, the Pequod. The latter was the work of John Quirk, a library and information science student, who also made a paper Mache model of the great white whale himself, Moby Dick.

“It was fun to do, but I’ll be amazed if it floats,” Quirk said before the race. He had spent two evenings and at least 75 catalog cards making his ship. Michael Mims, a finance sophomore from Leesville, S.C., fashioned 40 cards into a pyramid-shaped raft. Those boats and more than a dozen others were judged by a team of professors, including Wally Peters, a mechanical engineering professor who dressed as a pirate—complete with eye patch—for the regatta.

Launched at the north end of the library’s reflecting pool, most of the vessels merely bobbed around after a brief breeze died down. The Pequod unceremoniously keeled over, took on water, and sank, while Moby Dick floated along on his side. A sailing ship model, crafted by students Jerry Wu and Max Smith, skimmed the surface like a schooner, leaving all of the others in its wake.

Librarian Marilee Birchfield, who organized the event, said there likely will be a spring art contest with the cards in addition to other events. For more about the library’s plan to find a second life for the catalog cards, visit sc.edu/library/inthecards.html.