End book abuse

There are lots of things which are just plain bad for books. Sunlight. Excessive humidity. Submersion. But one thing usually goes unnoticed in the ‘bad’ category. 

You know what I’m taking about:

 

Sadly, this is usually unnecessary. While there are some pretty savvy book photocopiers out there (the above NOT included, though it does have a nice piece of clip art demonstrating how to press a book into the glass), I would argue the best move is to offer a digital camera for patrons to use their own camera for reference-quality photographs for research. OR you can have one on hand that is for in-house use. You can even have a bit of fun with it (here I reused a blank catalog guide and wrote up some text). NB It is filed under ‘C’ for camera...

 

If you label your “circulating” camera, you can also affix signage that briefly explains why traditional photocopying isn’t great for collections (especially material of historic value).

 

In the past, if paper was too brittle a microfilm copy would be made (and then countless copies could be made from that film) – now fewer places are offering that service (and some not at all). I’d argue you can make digital photographs sound even more appealing than photocopies or microfilm: 1) they’re in color 2) you can email them and store them digitally. I am, naturally, not suggesting this as a way of replacing ILL or professional publishable photography, but as a substitute for our flattened copy platen friends this could help with the overzealous handling and copying of materials. Its time to end book abuse. 

 

 

Note – the book modeling above is not a current circulating text – it was discarded. In other words, no library books were damaged in the creation of this post.