Instructional Technology: A Game-Changer for a Hands-On Workshop

In early October, Preservation Services Staff had the pleasure of teaching a pre-conference workshop for the North Carolina School Library Media Association's (NCSLMA) 2018 conference in Winston-Salem, NC. 

NCSLMA Pre-Conference Workshop in Winston-Salem, NC

"Book Repair on a Budget" is a hands-on workshop we developed to teach basic book repair techniques to school media specialists who often have very little time or funding to tackle book repairs, yet have an important need to preserve the life of their collections for as long as possible. After providing the workshop for several groups of Guilford County Schools Media Specialists in March of this year, we were invited to teach an extended version at the NCSLMA conference. (To read more about our partnership with Guilford County Schools Library Media Services, click here.)

Audrey Sage, Preservation Manager,
demonstrating how to reback the spine of a book

In the three-hour workshop, we addressed a variety of book repairs including paper mending, repairing loose covers, and repairing book spines. We focused on treatments that were relatively quick and easy to perform and that required materials media specialists likely have on hand or could acquire inexpensively. 

Lumens DC125 Ladibug Document Camera

Thanks to a Lumens DC125 Ladibug Document Camera (click here for more information), each step of the repairs we taught could easily be viewed by participants from the comfort of their seats. The document camera allowed us to easily alternate between demonstrations and hands-on work with participants to facilitate learning and improve their performance of each repair technique. At times, instructional technology can be a distraction from learning, but in this case it was a positive game-changer.

Suzanne Sawyer, Preservation Technician,
demonstrating how to tip in a loose page

Sawyer demonstrating a book repair with
the aid of a document camera

Participants of the workshop received a bag of sample materials that were used in our demonstrations as well as a link to our libguide, an online resource we have created (click here to view our libguide). It includes our PowerPoint presentations and videos, along with other digital resources about book repair, and a list of vendors for book repair supplies and equipment. It is our hope that the libguide will serve as a manual of sorts for school media specialists to return to for their own reference or as a guide for teaching book repair techniques to older students or library volunteers.

Book Repair On A Budget: A Partnership With Guilford County Schools Library Media Services

Preservation Services Staff were pleased to conduct a series of workshops entitled “Book Repair on a Budget” for the Guilford County Schools (GCS) Media Specialists on January 31 and February 1, 2018. We partnered with Tammy Gruer, the GCS Director of Library Media Services, to design the workshops based on requests from Media Specialists for a hands-on training to aid in extending the life of their school library collections.

Suzanne Sawyer, UNCG Preservation Technician,
teaching GCS Media Specialists about book repair

With the understanding that the Media Specialists are working on a limited budget and with very full schedules, our goal was to focus on treatments that are relatively quick and easy to perform and that require materials already on hand or that can be acquired inexpensively.

Demonstrating a book spine repair

Corner repair

Media Specialists rotated between two sessions on common book repairs. One session covered paper mending and interior hinge repairs and the other addressed spine and cover repairs. 

Textblock in need of a consolidation repair

Demonstrating interior hinge repair

Ms. Gruer provided document cameras for each of our presentations which allowed us to project our demonstrations in process for each step of the treatments. 

Audrey Sage, UNCG Preservation Services Manager,
demonstrating a spine repair with the aid
of a document camera

The document cameras proved to be valuable tools as the Media Specialists had a much better view of the techniques and were able to more easily work along with us at their own work stations. 

GCS Media Specialists learning about
spine and cover repairs

In addition to the workshops, we created a Book Repair LibGuide as a repository for a variety of resources including the presentations we used in the workshops, online videos and manuals, and vendors for book repair supplies. 

Book Repair LibGuide created by Preservation Services

We are grateful to UNCG’s Special Collections & University Archives for providing financial support so that we could also offer a gift bag of sample book repair supplies and tools for the GCS Media Specialists.

It is our hope that GCS Media Specialists will be able to share the LibGuide with parent volunteers or older students that may be able to assist with some of the book repairs. 

We also plan to continue the partnership between our staff and GCS’s Library Media Services so that we might provide ongoing support for extending the life of school library book collections in our community.