Almost three decades ago now, I had a student job at the University of Minnesota's Library Binderies. Of all the various student jobs I had, it was probably my favorite. On the one hand, it was also the most "blue collar," as such things go – except maybe my brief stint working at janitorial services – and thus there was a degree of drudgery involved. Not to mention, the kind of danger one associates with factory work, summed up in the time I chopped off the end of my finger on a giant paper-cutting machine, which the state-of-the-art U of M hospitals successfully re-attached. On the other hand, the job gave a surprising satisfaction to see an actual product emerge as a result of my work, and further, many of my coworkers were pleasant to work with and kind to me, many times. I even developed out-of-work friendships with several.
I also learned quite a bit about the technology of mass-production book bindery, and even the art of hand-making books, too, although the day-to-day work didn't involve the latter. I loved going to the University Libraries, subsequent to that job, and speculating idly just how many of the vast number of volumes in those stacks my hands had touched. I still have kinesthetic dreams about operating the hydraulic cover-cloth folding machine, a particular favorite of mine, where the hot-glue-coated covers were folded onto the cardboard: suppa-CHUNK, suppa-CHUNK, suppa-CHUNK, suppa-CHUNK! You pushed the pedal four times, one for each of the four edges of the cover, as you spun it around for each fold, then ran the plastic straightedge into the creases to make it clean and tight.
I am in a kind of contact with one of my former coworkers from that bindery time, and she sent me a notice recently that inspired this post. The University of Minnesota Library Bindery has closed. The digital technologies associated with books has transformed the bindery business, and made it untenable. There is an article about it at the University of Minnesota Daily (the U of M's newspaper). I was suprised to see, in the article, that the bindery manager is the same man who had been my boss all those years ago. I guess he made a career of it.
[daily log: walking, 1km]