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| When books sing the blues. |
We all know the scenario. A teary-eyed youngin comes up to the circulation desk. You lean over and ask what's wrong. He refuses to meet your eyes, but produces a lump of pulp that was once a copy of Harry Potter. You take it from him, look at the stains of chocolate, the dog bite marks, the damage of a water puddle, other unsightly scrapes that you cannot identify. Then you charge that little punk for the full cost, warning him that if he cries you will charge him for two.
I kid.
Damage is inevitable for a public library. The books for check out are meant to be destroyed, almost by design. Outside of a patron maliciously tearing the book, damage by overt recklessness, or the odd patron who will write to "correct" the literature with ink pen, most get away with it. And if you want to know what "overt recklessness" is, I once charged a guy for a Chilton car repair manual because he used it as a tire stop when raising his car to fix it. It still had tire marks on it. He did not mean to damage it, but he paid for it.
Hit the jump for a couple of links for repairing books and a cool video.
Minnesota Historical Society- Caring for Damaged Books
How to Repair Different Parts of Books When Damaged