Preservation Week 2020: Minneapolis Public Library Bindery
How do you keep one of the nation’s largest public library collections ready for eager patrons? A team dedicated to the preservation and repair of library materials is an important part of the answer. The Hennepin County Library Preservation Department (part of our team in Special Collections) has a long history of keeping our books in top-notch shape. In honor of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week, here is a behind the scenes peak at the Preservation Department’s predecessor--the Minneapolis Public Library Book Bindery.
From the earliest days of the library, the bindery was an essential function. In 1899, only 10 years after the library first opened its doors, over 10,000 books came through the bindery. By the 1940s, that number had passed 60,000 books per year. Creating new and replacement bindings was the most common work of the bindery, but bindings were by no means the only repairs. The bindery staff tackled everything from mounting maps to making scrapbooks. Replacing missing pages presented one of the greatest challenges for the bindery. Bindery Superintendent Oscar Berg explained it to the Minneapolis Star like this:
Books with a page missing offer the most tedious problems....It’s necessary to look through the whole volume to find the missing page, and then the trouble shooter has to hunt through stacks of worn out books for a volume which has the missing page. Sometimes we don’t have an old copy with the needed page on hand. Then we type out the page on a special machine, and insert the typed page when the book is resewed. (Feb. 12, 1927)
Berg was certainly an authority on the bindery. If a book entered the bindery between 1907 and 1956, odds are it bore his handiwork. After finishing eighth grade, Berg began his library career at age 14. By 1920, he was the superintendent of the bindery department. He led the bindery until his retirement 36 years later.
While many of the tools of the book repair trade have changed, some things remain the same. Hennepin County Library Preservation Specialist Frank Hurley recognizes the glue pot and the sewing frame in these 1947 bindery photos. Both are still at home in the library. The glues used to repair books have changed over the years, and this glue pot has become a holder for brushes and tools. The sewing frame, however, is still put to use from time to time. You might even be able to pick it out in some of our earlier Tumblr posts.
Interested in more bindery history? Explore the Minneapolis Public Library Annual Reports in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.
Interested in learning more about how to preserve your books and mementos? The American Library Association has free webinars and resources on their Preservation Week website.
