Down in the bottom level of the Bloch Building, the staff of the Spencer Art Reference Library is busy cataloging, shelving and researching the more than 155,000 volumes that live in the stacks.
One area that many public libraries don’t have is the book repair desk. This is where the books go with torn pages, broken spines or just generally need a little TLC.
Dawn Sanders is the Cataloger and Book Conservation Technician. She has worked in the Spencer Library for 14 years. She learned the trade of repairing books as an art student at Cooper Union in New York.
Assisting her was volunteer Anne Lacey who is working on her Masters of Library Sciences at Emporia State University. Anne recently traveled to Croatia on a field trip to study libraries and collections damaged during the Homeland War of the early 1990s.
Typical projects include repairing torn pages or reattaching spines. Recently, the dynamic duo had “moldy book day” where they took a bunch of books suspected of containing mold out to a corner of the parking garage for examination. Most of the books were deemed to be just dirty or gritty but a few were held back as possible offenders and require further work.
Today was pocket envelope day. Dawn and Anne were hand making envelopes to hold supplemental materials that come with books such as posters, CDs or inserts. For instance, Dawn had a chart of all the lunar eclipses of the last five millennia.
As an artist, Dawn likes the hands-on aspect of repairing books. “If you like doing arts and crafts, this is a good job for you because you get to cut and glue and create things,” she said.
Anne enjoys volunteering in the book repair area and the experience she is gaining. When she finishes her MLS degree, she wants to work with rare books in special collections. On a related note, the Museum has an extensive collection of approximately 4,900 rare books that was featured previously on our blog.
“It’s fun to look at the books we’re repairing. One of the first times I worked here, I glued one of William Rockhill Nelson’s books back together. I think it was a book on the birds of North America,” said Anne.
The shelves around the desk were filled with books in need of various repairs sure to keep Anne and Dawn happily busy for many months.
Comments (1)
I did a bit of repairing at a library where I worked, but I'm sure it wasn't as extensive as what you do - nor were the books rare or exquisite.
Some joke about this kind of thing not being exciting, but it can be, and I think you're right: it can be very satisfying.
Posted by Jennifer Harshman | June 21, 2010 4:23 PM
Posted on June 21, 2010 16:23