On May 14, the California Preservation Program (CPP) and the Library Binding Institute (LBI) held a workshop on library binding at the Arcadia Public Library, in Arcadia, CA. I attended to speak briefly about preservation and work with people during the afternoon hands-on session.
Commercial binding is the gateway service to other preservation and conservation services in libraries. I had a great time talking with the attendees about the needs they see at their institutions and some first steps they might try to address their concerns.
This workshop was part of the debut of the excellent new Library Binding Toolkit, a useful new resource which we were able to give to each attendee gratis, thanks to the support of CPP and LBI.
Before and after the workshop, the 37 participants were asked to score their confidence in the following areas (on a four-point scale), and I think the numbers speak for the themselves.
| Before Workshop | After | Difference | % increase | |
| Identify types of pre-commercially bound leaf attachments? | 65 | 129 | 64 | 98% |
| Identify various types of binding commercial binding options? | 68 | 141 | 73 | 107% |
| Prepare items for commercial binding? | 78 | 141 | 63 | 81% |
| Review commercial bound material for quality? | 80 | 147 | 67 | 84% |
| Communicate effectively with commercial binder’s customer service representative? | 80 | 138 | 58 | 73% |