UARD: Bindery

Upon entering the bindery section, I was attacked by the awful and nauseating smell of animal glue or Pearl Glue used in binding and repairing books. I would rather smell Elmers Glue right about that time. I meet Sir Lamuel the head (?) and I think only personnel in binding all of the need-to-be-binded books and other reading materials. He is within his fifties (I guess), which worried and amazed me at the same time. Worried because he may retire soon and the library hasn’t found a replacement for him yet (from what I observed) or rather haven’t trained anyone who is willing to stay at that four-wall room smelling of old books and the ever-present Pearl Glue. Amazed because doing bindery isn’t an easy peasy lemon squeezy work and the fact that he still has the power to do tedious work such as this is worth applauding.

via GIPHY

I was taught the basics, introduced me to the working area, and taught me how to use the cutter. Sir warned me about the giant cutter – that I might cut my thumb without notice and since then I got afraid of using it. I am good with scissors thank you! I kept on trying and cutting pieces of cardboard and 70 % of my trials are fails and Sir assists the other 30%.

My work station

PEARL GLUE

Bindery Guidelines

It’s hard especially since I am a left-handed person. Turns out that if you’re a left hand and your doing this for the first time, it will be a little hard since the world is more declined to right handed people. 

I got two books, one I almost destroyed due to miscommunication--Sir talks deep Filipino and I am not really good at Filipino. Like in the cutting trial, Sir assisted me again and I got to remove the spine and poke a hole for the needle and thread to pass through and sew.

I didn’t know that until I got to the bindery section. There is the crossover that I did to the book I unintentionally mildly damage and the ordinary sewing that I did to another book.

That’s basically what I did in my first hours in the bindery section.

I made a guess that it is probably that fact that the book is published 5 years or so that its time to preserve it. Then another question goes into my head: what is or are the signs or criteria that its time for a book to be given to the bindery section (besides the obvious for example the loosing of pages from its spine)?