Rant: Seeing the library go digital changed how I view book repairs.

In my experience, this shift means fewer projects but more meaningful ones. Your mileage may vary, but it's a quiet shift in our trade.

4 comments

4 Comments

fiona_garcia1mo ago

Huh, that's actually really interesting. When you say the projects are more meaningful now, what does that look like? Like, are you mostly fixing super old or special books that wouldn't work digitally anyway, or is it a different kind of repair work?

emmaking1mo ago

Oh, it's totally glamorous stuff, lol. Like, last week I spent three hours reattaching pages to a cookbook that smelled like burnt cookies. Another time, I fixed a mystery novel where the climax was literally falling out. It's less about ancient scrolls and more about saving books people actually use and abuse. So yeah, 'meaningful' means I'm basically a book doctor for well-loved disasters.

kelly_dixon611mo ago

That burnt cookie smell detail got me. Can't believe someone would fix a book that's been through that much. Really shows how much a beat-up physical book can still mean to someone even now.

grant.anthony27d ago

Honestly yeah, it's all about the books with stories baked into the pages now, not just the stories printed on them. Like fixing a kid's favorite picture book that's been taped back together a dozen times already.