Halvorsen Library Opens a Seed Library in Its Old Card Catalog

Halvorsen Library has a new collection on its main floor, and it can’t be renewed. A seed library opened Tuesday in the library’s 1962 oak card catalog. The cabinet had stood in a back hallway, empty, since the online catalog replaced it in 1998.

The 60 drawers now hold 140 varieties of seed, filed by plant family the way the drawers once held cards by subject. About two-thirds of the stock was saved from plots at the University Farm and the campus garden. The rest was donated by a Porter County seed company and by members of the gardening club, who spent December packing envelopes.

“We kept that cabinet for twenty-six years because nobody could bear to throw it out, and nobody could think of a use for it. It turns out a seed packet is almost exactly the size of a catalog card. Somebody in 1962 planned better than they knew.”

— Marta Kowalczyk, head of research and outreach services, Halvorsen Library

How it works:

• Anyone with a Porter Card or a Porter Falls Public Library card can take up to six packets per visit, at no charge.
• Packets are labeled with days to maturity, spacing and whether the plant is a good candidate for saving seed.
• Returning seed is encouraged but optional. The library’s honest assessment is that a borrowed tomato seed is rarely returned as a tomato seed.
• The prairie drawer (little bluestem, wild bergamot, purple coneflower and 14 others) is meant for yards and rain gardens, and comes with a planting sheet from the environmental science department.

The seed library is open whenever the main floor is, which during the semester is 7:30 a.m. to midnight on weekdays. Three free workshops on seed starting and saving will run in the library classroom on Tuesday evenings in February and March, co-taught by farm staff and student gardeners.

The catalog cabinet still has its original brass drawer pulls and, in drawer 41, a single surviving card for a 1954 book on soil chemistry. Staff have decided to leave it there. Hours and other services are on the Halvorsen Library page.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu