Remembering vertical files

Going through some of my old work emails, I saw this draft I had written for the library newsletter back on 7/9/2009. I'm not sure if it was ever included, but it read:

"Looking for apartment ads?  Back issues of India Review or the Radio
Hill Gazette?  News articles about School District U-46?  You used to
be able to find all these things in the library’s Community File – and
you still can!  The Community File has been moved to the Government
Documents room.  If you need help finding it, just stop by and ask!"

A vertical file, for you youngsters who might have stumbled across this blog, is "a collection of resource materials, such as pamphlets, clippings from periodicals, and mounted photographs, arranged for ready reference, as in a library or an archive."

I had inherited a lot of material when other departments in the library gave up contributing to the vertical file. Vertical files were, even then, seen as outdated and replaced by the Internet. But, while the Internet is great for searching, it's terrible for browsing, and I knew that browsing was one area where libraries could still outshine the Internet.

I did do a lot of weeding initially of the vertical file and got rid of a lot of material that wasn't locally relevant -- which is how the vertical file became renamed the community file. Towards the end, I had too many new job tasks to keep up with newspaper clippings, so that had to stop. But I kept some files current, right up to the end.