A Harvest, and Covering Books

We got these tomatoes from our tomato plant (or, as the British say, "tomahto plahnt") last weekend. Unlike our first harvest these weren't at all mealy and in fact we found them really good. I only wish we had more! I think the plant still has some green ones on it but who knows how well they'll ripen as the weather cools. Dave's co-worker gave him this plant last spring, so frankly anything we get is a bonus.

OK. Some of you asked for details about covering books. I'm going to do my best to make this interesting.

When we add a book to our library -- whether purchased or donated -- it goes first to the cataloging clerk. That person, my co-worker, enters the book into the online library catalog using international library references that guide its placement, within a certain Dewey decimal category, for example. Her cataloging ensures that someone searching for a book about a certain topic or by a certain author will be able to find it. The clerk prints a spine label bearing the book's call number -- usually a sheet of them at a time, for a stack of books -- and then hands everything to me.

If the book is a paperback, I start here. First I attach the spine label, which you see I've already done. Then I use scissors and a plastic smoothing tool to wrap the book in special library-quality book covering. It's an adhesive plastic a bit like contact paper, but made specially for books.

If I do a good job (which I always do!) the book winds up looking like this. It takes a little more than seven minutes (I timed myself) to wrap the adhesive plastic around the entire book, smoothing out any air bubbles with the tool, and to trim the corners and edges. Sometimes books need more than one spine label, if they're for a certain age group or fall into a certain category like a graphic novel.

I also stamp the book with the name of our library, inside the front and back covers, as well as the date it was acquired. I attach a "date due" slip inside the back cover, and that's where I stamp the due date when the book is checked out. (Most libraries don't stamp due dates anymore but we still do. We're old-fashioned like that. It helps kids know when the book is due and helps us see at a glance how often it gets read.)

Hardcover books are a whole 'nother thing. I take the dust jacket off the book, affix the spine label to it, and cut a different kind of book cover to fit it.

This cover is a sort of clear plastic envelope with a paper backing, and an adhesive strip at the top. The dust jacket goes inside it, facing the plastic, then the adhesive strip is uncovered and the clear plastic is folded down and secured to the paper backing to create a pocket around the dust jacket. Can you envision that? Sometimes part of the paper needs to be trimmed away to better fit the dust jacket, in which case the plastic folds down farther. It's basically one-size-fits-all.

Then the corners of the covered jacket are taped to the book using special book tape, which secures the cover to the book itself.

And voila! The book is covered, and after stamping it's ready to be checked out.

I'm sure this process still isn't entirely clear, but I couldn't take a photo of every single step because a) phones are prohibited at our school starting this year, so I had to be furtive about using mine at my desk, and b) I need two hands for most of the steps so I had no way to hold the camera.

If you want more information about the products used during this process, you can see them at library supply sites like this one.

Covering a single book is no big deal, but often the cataloger hands me a stack of 20 books at a time, and covering those can take a few hours -- especially since I'm also dealing with kids and re-shelving and doing all the other things that are part of my job.

Fun, right? Aren't you glad you asked?