About a month ago my lab moved temporarily from one campus to another. During the move out we unearthed many forgotten supplies, including some pieces of red velvet book cloth. Given that it’s probably not very “archival”, I was a little baffled as to why we had it in the lab in the first place. […]
Today I’m working on a treatment that is basically the rare book equivalent of cleaning under the couch cushions. This 2-volume herbal was used by a previous owner as a plant press, and many leaves, flowers and other assorted plant parts were discovered in-between its pages by our special collections librarian. The plants had already […]
And this is also why the staff at the library will often stress that patrons should not attempt their own repairs of library books. The “repair” often does more damage than helps, and won’t actually save you from being fined for a repair or replacement fee. This was so heavily damaged that we ended up withdrawing […]
Me IRL (Image from “The Children’s Book on How to Use Books and Libraries” by Moot and Baisden, 1937.)
1936. Book Repairs at the Urbana Free Library Works Progress Administration Photographic File. Pictures from the Urbana Daily Courier, Champaign County Historical Archives, Urbana Free Library. [x]
“Please fix this bad fix” is a surprisingly large percentage of my job. This book was sent to me because someone had replaced one of the pages with a photocopy (actually TWO photocopies glued together to make a two-sided copy) by taping it to the adjacent original pages in the book. Sigh.
sonofahurricane: npr: conservethis: Roses are red, Violets are blue, If you put tape on your books, I’ll never EVER love you. As a book-lover I support this valentine. -Mabinty can someone explain to me why we hate tape on books? Like book tape (when my mom could spare it) has saved a couple of my […]
Today’s work: a brace of matching re-backs on a biography of architect Daniel H. Burnham.
Here in the lab there’s no issues,With using our tissues,Except when you sneeze,We ask you quite please,Use the Kleenex and not the Sekishu! There once was a company named Demco,Whose products were used with a gusto,On spines they would drape,The most marvelous tape,Removing its really quite slow, yo. I work in a book-fixing lab,this makes […]
Paste and methyl cellulose.