• Office supplier Quill is celebrating its 70th anniversary with a physical catalog.
• Quill’s anniversary catalog is a retro trip through memory lane, looking back at the office decade by decade.

There was a time when I worked in a physical office and took actual coffee breaks. While many coworkers brought their own books or magazines to read, I preferred flipping through one of the numerous supply catalogs my employer received. I’d marvel at the number of paper, chair, and toner options. I wasn’t even in charge of ordering any of these things, but I found these catalogs, at least for 10 minutes at a time, were more interesting than a month-old copy of People—at least to me, anyway.

Of course, now people can scroll through their phones during coffee breaks, and bulky printed catalogs full of the kinds of stuff that make offices hum have been supplanted by websites and apps. But many of us are still nostalgic for an actual printed catalog.