cARTalog is a community-based art project intended to honor the University of Iowa Libraries retired public card catalog and offer a rebirth to the long-loved card file which would have otherwise met its fate in the recycle bin. The five library staff who founded the project in 2005 were able to salvage only one fifth of the Libraries’ public card catalog for the cARTalog project, approximately one million cards.Participants – from Iowa, across the country and around the world – were invited to adopt cards and recreate a home for them in whatever way was most meaningful to them. Over the year and half duration of the project, over 500 individuals and organizations requested cards for countless projects – some known at conception and others which are still in a phase of germination. Demographically, participation was organic and well-rounded, representing international and intergenerational scope. Cards found rebirth in the hands of preschoolers, retirees, students, teachers, children and parents and grandparents. Among these participants emerged artists, writers, librarians, comedians and musicians, to name a few.The cARTalog Project involved several non-juried satellite projects including an online gallery, a K-12 Exhibition, a Mail Art Project, General Exhibition (which was open April-July 2006 in the North Exhibition Hall of the Main Library), was well as a new library collection.