Once a week a truck would arrive from Washington...D.C....loaded with books from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress all to be rebound. These were not rare books or books so special they were seldom used and thus never in need of rebinding. These were reports and reports and a few texts, but mostly reports. Their bindings were the deep grey or deep blue vinyl, one color, no patterns; very formal and nearly all uniform in size, not quite as large as a Life Magazine, and much, much thicker.
The other two trucks that arrived each week were loaded with library books from high, middle and elementary schools. There were small thin early readers to text books on calculus to novels and poetry and volumes of history. These received vinyl covers, but in a variety of pastels and some with a small pattern, like a fleur de lis, on the lower corners, giving the books a little character, a little style. Never as thick as the Smithsonian books and never more than three or four the same size, the library books could be the more distracting as curriculum from past lives passed by.
Each book with a new cover had to have its spine stamped with the title, the author and the call numbers...Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress. That was my job; I operated a stamping machine.
My work station was one of five that included a typesetter and a stamper. I worked with Leonard. When he received the books they had been stripped of their old covers, the pages restitched or glued as needed to hold them intact, a new cover made and the two parts, cover and pages, stacked neatly together.
Leonard would read the hand written instructions that came with each book and with precise motions that were rapid and mechanical he’d reach into tiny bins large enough for a thumb and a finger and pull out lead letters to spell the title, the author’s name and the seemingly random letters and numbers that made up the call numbers. He’d then slide them into the typesetting machine, pull one lever with his right hand while pressing down on another with this right foot. When he handed the stacks of books to me, there were now three parts: the pages, the cover, and the type.
The stamper reminded me of a drill press, tall, narrow, one big arm to pull down to make it work. It also radiated heat. I would lay the cover on the table under the press, position the type in the slots above where they would start to quickly heat up, being careful to line them up with the spine, lay a strip of gold foil along the spine and with one quick pull down on the lever, the type pressed hot against the foil and imprinted the cover...Economics of Victorian England - Hubert - 330.94.
For about a week there had been no stamper working at my machine on first shift, the 7:00am-3:00pm shift. So when I came in on second shift, 3:00pm-11:00pm, there was a full day’s work waiting to be stamped. Then Leonard would add to the pile his own work. Most nights I could slack off a little if I got caught-up, even look at a book occasionally, but right now it was non-stop-stamping.
During the last hour of the shift when it seemed everyone was caught-up except for me, I looked at the table full of big books from the Smithsonian. I was determined to clear the table before I left for the evening. I wanted my work, and the work left for me to do by others, to be completed and completed well. I began to focus, got a rhythm going, helped a little because of the uniformity of the size of the books, hindered a littl by the complicated call numbers. With just ten minutes left to the end of the shift I reached for the last book. Everyone else was out by the loading dock waiting for the clock. I was alone in the shop. I pressed the call letters into the spine with an extra hard and quick pull on the lever, making the bright gold foil impression shimmer against the deep blue vinyl. I put the book on the finished stack, turned off the stamper and looked for a moment at the books I had touched.
I opened the last book I had stamped, randomly opened it to page 1407, signed my name in the margin, closed it, and made note of the call number.