
Library Hand, the Fastidiously Neat Penmanship Style Made for Card Catalogs - diodorus
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/library-hand-penmanship-handwriting
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Analemma_
There's also "architect handwriting" [0], designed to reduce potentially
dangerous misunderstandings involving buying the wrong part. It used to be a
required course in a lot of architecture schools before computers starting
doing it all. It's cool that there's not just one, but multiple "profession-
specific handwriting".

[0]: [https://artdepartmental.com/2009/10/12/learning-
architectura...](https://artdepartmental.com/2009/10/12/learning-
architectural-lettering/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Then there's also "Technical lettering" that was (is?) used in all kinds of
engineering.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering)

We learned that in primary school back in the 90s.

EDIT: I'm also surprised that in the "architectural lettering" example you
provided, it's 'o' that's crossed, as opposed to '0'.

~~~
DanBC
Isn't that the diameter symbol, and not o, O, or 0?

[http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2300/index.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2300/index.htm)

~~~
kalleboo
From its position among the regional accented letters, I'd assume it's the
Danish/Norwegian Ø

[http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00d8/index.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00d8/index.htm)

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gglitch
I don't know if there's actually a strong resemblance or if it's all in my
mind, but I'm reminded of Dijkstra's handwriting.

[http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1001.PDF](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1001.PDF)

~~~
npunt
Here's the Dijkstra font you can download and use:
[http://www.fontpalace.com/font-
details/Dijkstra/](http://www.fontpalace.com/font-details/Dijkstra/)

~~~
jagger27
With a bit of kerning help this font is fantastic.

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bonniemuffin
Library hand is beautiful to read, and in theory I'd love to have such nice
handwriting. But in practice, I value writing speed over all other factors,
and I'm usually the only one who needs to be able to read my writing. As long
as it's legible to me, it's good enough.

~~~
mmel
If speed is your main concern, have you considered using a shorthand?

~~~
tbirrell
Shorthand is one of those magical things that seems nice to know but looks
like learning a different language.

~~~
AceyMan
My late mother was a executive secretary (old terms) in a corporate chemical
engineering department [1].

She could type tables and such like a demon ... on a Royal manual typewriter,
no less.

She also could knock out quite decent Gregg shorthand, and I took a stab at
learning it from a textbook I picked up used somewhere.

I'd pick her brains for help when the book left me hanging. I achieved a
decent proficiency for a moderate effort off-hours attempt at self-
instruction.

It certainly required some patience and effort but I found it fairly natural
and well conceived, elegant even. Someday maybe I'll pick it up again. In
fifteen years it will seem like alchemy to the young'uns of the future.

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ph0rque
Interesting; is there a font based on this style?

~~~
tbirrell
I'm aware of a the cursive version having a font, but I've never been able to
find a print version (though I haven't applied much effort to the task).

[http://www.yuoiea.com/uoiea/index.php?id=255](http://www.yuoiea.com/uoiea/index.php?id=255)

~~~
sp332
Here's one based on a scan of "A Library Primer".
[https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/libhanddis](https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/libhanddis)

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voycey
Whereas I can barely read my own name if I write it #digitalchild

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weberc2
It seems remarkable that they couldn't justify the training time for a type
writer, but that learning a penmanship style was reasonable.

~~~
npunt
Remember these were for library cards and other short content. There are fixed
time costs of loading and unloading from a typewriter which may negate
some/most of the speed advantage, and using a typewriter may also bend the
cardstock over time. And finally, typewriters were expensive machines.

~~~
weberc2
Those are all perfectly valid reasons, but the article cited the training time
to use a type writer.

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WalterBright
Fonts that confuse 0 and O, 1 and l, are particularly loathsome.

~~~
DrScump
Back in the old days, it was pretty standard that the letter "i" was
distinguished with serifs, but (and I found this perplexing) there was a lot
of argument whether zero or "O" should have a slash. It was rather critical in
the old, _old_ days of filling out keypunch sheets.

~~~
patrick_haply
I started adding serifs to my writing back in engineering school to help me
decipher my own equations. I some moments where I couldn't figure out if I had
written "+t" or "t+", or "is that a 2 or a z?!", and realized I had to create
a script for myself and slow down a bit when writing.

Particularly troublesome characters that I remember were:

t vs +

u vs v

2 vs z

s vs 5

i (imaginary vs subscript marker)

g vs q (might seem silly, but prior to that, my handwriting didn't distinguish
between them much)

o/O vs 0 (zero gets a slash, but never had situations where I was dealing with
upper and lowercase o at the same time)

d vs ∂

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midgetjones
That was fascinating!

If only everyone would write in monotype.

~~~
KWxIUElW8Xt0tD9
I am no expert but my recollection is that European handwriting had a large
degree of standardization for long periods. Perhaps we have an expert here who
could tell us more.

[https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollection...](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/handwritingstyles.aspx)

~~~
eb0la
Not an expert, but I spent a lot of time looking at spanish 17th century
notary books ;-)

I guess handwriting in pre-press texts (incunables) is "designed" to be easy
to copy. If you look at the textura (gothic) script it is based on the same
pen movement with a flat pen. You cannot improvise too much with that kind of
pen.

This looks a _feature_ to me, because the cost of writing on vellum, mistakes
were very expensive.

