Currently on my bench is this book about a 1875 voyage to the Arctic. This particular passage reminded me of when I lived in Chicago, and simultaneously made me glad I now live in a MUCH warmer place! Also I absolutely love how the title looks like it has little icicles dripping down from the […]
Yes, that’s a banana. That was used as a bookmark, in one of our non-circulating books. And then left for our staff to find over the weekend. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??!!?!?! I hope it goes without saying, that if you’re reading my Tumblr, you know better than to leave banana peels in books.
So I just found out that Intelligentsia Coffee sells a DECAF ONLY “Librarian’s Blend”. Do they even KNOW any librarians?? Because libraries run on caffeine! I mean they wouldn’t dare make a decaf-only blend called “Doctor’s Blend” or “Lawyer’s Blend”.
This book’s call number label has peeled away, but also took some of the spine’s decoration with it, leaving an interesting pattern on the underside of the label.
I had a dream last night where I was examining something very closely for a private client and got a smudge of my lipstick on it. I surreptitiously tried to rub it off with my sleeve but only some of the lipstick came off. What a nightmare!
Today in the conservation lab…I’m evaluating books from our circulating collection, to determine if we should have them withdrawn or order replacements. These are books that, for some reason, cannot be easily or efficiently repaired. Many of them are brittle, but others are missing many of their pages due to vandalism, or cannot be rebound […]
Making paste on a Monday morning.
I always thought that the phrase “bindery discharge” sounded like the name of a disease that only afflicts bookbinders. In reality it means the damaged book can go directly to the bindery without any additional preparation by the preservation lab. This is often because it is an adhesive bound book, so the spine will just […]
Could you pass this dexterity test? If you interview for a job in my lab – as in many other library conservation labs – you will have to take a test like this to demonstrate your manual dexterity. This is just one example of a dexterity test that we used in the past. The test […]
This was a Wall Street Journal article about the Bookkeeper deacidification system. I rather like that they called it a “dunking machine”, as though it’s operated by Michael Jordan.