Damaged Book Display

Preservation is one of those things that most Library patrons don't think about. They also don't think about some of the things they can do to prevent the typical damages we see from day to day. The goal of this display was to bring awareness to Library users that things happen to books and we have special staff who are here to make Library books usable once again!

Thanks to Valentine's Day and Archives' wonderful plexiglass display case that I borrowed, this small display is a good reminder to those who come into the Library that "Library Books Need Love Too!"

Featured in this display are books with damages such as: water damage, office glue damage, tears from dog earring, loose pages, torn spines and more!

Bookmarks are made available as part of this display to eliminate some of the use of paperclips, post-it notes, rubberbands and other odd things that patrons leave in books (I will write a post about this in the near-future). The bookmarks were made available for free from the Library of Congress here.

I also inserted a little bit of my love for Harry Potter for a more personal touch and posted this on the Library's Instagram page. It received ample "likes" for Valentine's Day: 



I think the key is to have a little fun with it!

How do you bring awareness about damaged books and preservation to your library?!

Jamie Dalbey is a Preservation and Government Documents Technician at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Learn more about Preservation here.