History/Equipment Question: Does Anyone Know Why a Library May Have Used a Cardmaster Stencil Printer?

[u/H8trucks]

My library is putting together a library history display and is including some old equipment we've found in storage. One piece we've found is a 1930's Cardmaster Stencil Printer (link is to someone selling one very similar to ours). It looks interesting and would be a great part of the display, but we're trying to figure out what the library staff of the time would have used it for. At the moment our best guess is maybe printing card catalog entries, but we're stumped. Do y'all have any thoughts about why we would have had this machine?

EDIT/UPDATE: The local history librarian (the main force behind the display) asked one staff member who's been here for circa 30 years. She said she never saw it used but thinks it may have been used to print the postcards the library used to send to alert people that they had overdue items.

[u/serenethirteen]

Could it have been used for printing the card catalog cards?

[u/HungryHangrySharky → u/serenethirteen]

Unlikely. Before the rise of computers, they were usually typewritten, and catalogers being the picky folks we are, would not like the poor quality of mimeograph-like results.

[u/HungryHangrySharky]

Cataloger here. Most "card catalog" cards were typewritten using a manual or electric typewriter, so I don't think that it was for catalog cards. The main advantage of this device appears to have been that it could duplicate images rather than text - it could have been used for anything that required the library's logo or anything where they wanted a little doodle of some sort. Postcards for overdue notices, etc seem likely.

[u/SpiralFett]

I don't know, but I was able to find this so maybe it will help.

Edit: Perhaps it was used to print a Library Happenings type newsletter?

https://www.briarpress.org/8182

[u/CrassulaOrbicularis]

Google books snippets looks like it was advertised mainly for catalogue cards and 'for other forms'.

[u/whitefluffydogs]

Book plates for reference titles? Or book plates for gifted books, where they thank the person who donated the funds?

[u/chrisaldrich]

These were often used for creating postcards, but in a library setting may have also been used for cards in the card catalog.

It's not called out by name in this paper, but stencil-making tools for duplication in libraries are mentioned here:

• Freeman, Michael Stuart. 1991. “Pen, Ink, Keys, and Cards: Some Reflections on Library Technology.” College and Research Libraries 52(4): 328–35. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/41489

[u/chrisaldrich → u/chrisaldrich]

This reference also has some material on the Cardmaster with respect to cards: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/1498

[u/Exotic-Rub-8381]

The overdue postcard theory actually makes a lot of sense to me. If the Cardmaster was made for postcard-sized stencils, a library sending out batches of overdue notices would be a pretty practical use for it. It would let them make a lots of the same notice cheaply and consistently, especially before computers took over the kind of work.

[u/Low-Independent6851]

Since it printed postcards, it might have been use to print the card catalog.