Look what I learned to do this fall!
This fall I’ve been volunteering in my daughter’s middle school library. Mostly the job involves shelving books kids have already read and helping kids find the books they’d like to read next.
But a few weeks ago I was promoted to Apprentice Book Repair Person.
The students have read the library’s signed copy of Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins to pieces. Three of them to be precise — the front cover and spine, the back cover, and the block of pages in the middle.
[image error]Rebel Belle pre-repair. The back cover is sitting underneath the stack of inside pages, so you can’t see it in this photo.
It turns out the only thing holding the book together was that Mylar cover librarians put on books to protect their dust jackets.
[image error]All dressed up and ready for the next school dance.
Once I took the Mylar cover off, the inside pages promptly divorced themselves from the rest of the book.
The librarian handed me a sad little stack of book parts, a repair manual, a rebinding machine, a stash of repair supplies, and asked me to do my best.
Reader, I fixed it.
I cannot in good conscience use the words “good as new,” but Rachel Hawkins’ Rebel Belle is ready to be loved again.
The sweetest thing?
The book needed to sit on the repair shelf for 24 hours before it could be re-introduced into the stacks. My librarian buddy saved it for me, and I got to return it to the stacks myself when I walked in last week.
Sniff. I love librarians.
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So I sat down today to do a bit of blogging and then this happened (Caterpickles)
