| The book care and repair class was an interesting opportunity, and I am grateful that I was able to attend. My formal MLIS education never included anything about how to repair books, and I have always found this to be a serious gap in my professional knowledge. This class introduced and covered the basics of how to restore books for use in a public collection. The instructor was clear that repairing books for historical preservation purposes was beyond the scope of this because those texts required more exacting and specific steps. I acquired a solid baseline knowledge for how to repair and extend the circulation life of the books we possess. I am definitely looking forward to the opportunity to practice these skills and techniques now back at my own library. The instructor was fantastic, and provided plenty of library wisdom and ideas beyond just book repairs.
One thing that’s worth noting is that the class did take on a bit of a sales pitch feel at times. Since Demco put this on with no registration fee, I expected this would be the case. We were provided with Demco brand samples of most of the equipment for the training, and then during the process a lot of the steps and processes were explained with Demco trade names. I was expecting this since once again free training, but I could see how it may be jarring to someone. |
