Used booksellers move very quickly at library sales, yard sales, thrift shops and other such haunts, and sometimes find out later that some of the great titles they picked up have flaws. So what do you do with a book that has a few tears, a label’s residue on the cover, or even a musty smell? You could list it as “Acceptable” and ensure either that it will not sell or that it will sell to somebody who doesn’t read the listing and will complain about its condition. You could toss it out or donate it back to the library whence you bought it. But in many cases there is a better solution:
Yes, it’s time to get out your trusty bookseller’s repair toolbox!
There are probably as many different approaches to book repair, and as many different tools in use, as there are experienced used booksellers, but it will come as no surprise that the best efforts to codify the art of book repair have come from librarian. We therefore recommend that you avail yourself of these truly impressive and rather amazing online authorities on the subject:
· Book Repair, by Elizabeth Dodds, Colby College Libraries (www.colby.edu/library/collections/technical_services/wp/BookRepair.html)
· A Simple Book Repair Manual, Preservation Services, Dartmouth College Library (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~preserve/repair/repairindex.htm)
· Emergency Salvage of Moldy Books and Paper, by Beth Lindblom Patkus, Northeast Document
Conservation Center (http://www.nedcc.org/plam3/tleaf39.htm)
Your Book Repair Toolbox
Meanwhile, here are a few good suggestions both from our own experience and that of other sellers, for items that you may want to keep in a very basic book repair toolbox:
· Goo Gone is a widely used solvent known for doing wonders when it comes to cleaning book cover residue. You can probably pick it up at your neighborhood hardware or art supplies store, or find an exhaustive list of physical and mail-order retailers at the website of its manufacturer, Magic American (www.magicamerican.com). The website is worth a trip even if you already have a supply and a source, if only to read customer testimonials like “When I discovered Goo Gone, my whole world changed” and “If it had been a commercial, I would have sworn it was faked!”
· Another product that has received strong bookseller testimonials for its power to clean residue and soiling is Whisper Kleen, manufactured by BondRite and available at industrial supply distributors including Southeastern Distribution (800-825-1444).
· White paper hinge tape and/or other book repair tapes from the library suppliers Highsmith (www.highsmith.com) and Brodart (www.brodart.com). Indeed, it’s well worth your time to go to both of these sites and browse around under their “Library Supplies” and “Book Repair” headings.
· An exacto knife or something similar.
· You will need a book press if you regularly deal with seriously warped hardcover books that will have some value if you can get them straightened out. But before you go spending money for the real thing, you may want to try a little creative substitution with a tennis racket press. Or, if you have some very rudimentary carpentry skills and a power drill, you can make your own book press out of two boards and four long bolts held by wing nuts.
· If a book has labels or stickers than do not readily come off, try warming them with a hair dryer and you will probably be able to remove them more easily.
· While most booksellers will agree that it is far better to avoid any book with a musty order than to deodorize it, because mildew spreads, there may well be times when you want to try to salvage such a book, and such times will demand the elements of your own book deodorizing kit, including resealable bags, some form of “separator”, and an appropriate solution. Most solutions involve mothballs, which of course have their own toxicity, but you may want to try the solution offered by our colleagues at J Godsey Booksellers (email: gods@attbi.com), who sell Book Deodorizing granules by the quart for $12.50 postpaid with a money back guarantee: “The granules are a dry solid clay base permeated with a minute amount of a deodorizing chemical that is not reactive to dry porous materials such as books, paper and textiles. They work best when enclosed in a plastic airtight container such as a bag or plastic box for a period of time relative to the severity of the odor. About a week or two for stuffy, mildew smells. The residual odor dissipates with a few hours airing.”
· Several clean, high-quality art gum and other erasers of the kind you can buy at an art supplies store will come in handy when removing pencil and other marks, scribbles, prices, and marginalia.
· A ruler
· Rubber bands
· Scissors
· Clean rags
If you have the kind of love for books that inspires many of us to situate ourselves in this line of work, you will probably find a special pleasure in the arts of repairing books. Keeping a good book in circulation a while longer and making it into a more attractive purchase for its next buyer is well worth the expenditure of your time and energy even if it doesn’t always translate into a good hourly rate of profit.
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