Shipping Books

As I said earlier, I've been ordering books from Amazon and buying them on eBay. Quite a few of these have arrived over the last week and some... And I'm quite annoyed.

[Rant]
Wrapping the book in a layer of newsprint and dropping it into a manila envelope does not constitute proper packaging.

Even if the envelope is lined with cheap bubble wrap or foam.
[/Rant]

Out of five books received from amateur booksellers, three have been damaged because of poor quality packaging. One (a tall thin hardback) arrived actually creased! When I brought up the matter with the bookseller she replied, "We are not responsible for what happens to books after we ship them". Now I'll be the first to admit that she is (mostly) correct. But booksellers are responsible for packaging books to survive shipping. If you fail to package a book properly, you are just as responsible as if you personally had damaged the book.

Have you ever ordered a book from Amazon itself? Next time you do, take a close look at how it is packaged - stiffened with cardboard, padded with bubblewrap, and protected from contacting the sides of the cardboard box the books are placed in. (Though their packagers aren't always as careful to pad on all six sides as they might be.) That is the only way to properly package and ship a book.

Binding today

It's been a busy week wandering the web and learning where bookbinding stands today. I'm amazed at how much has changed with the rise of (home) craft binding and book art. My mind is bubbling with potential projects. 'Back when' I learned binding, they taught case binding and that was that.

While out a' wandering, at Cailun.info I came across this shopping list. While the circumstances that caused him to compose it are tragic, it's been incredibly useful for deciding what I need to outfit my workbench. I've sent off order to Talas and Hollander, and perused my local art supply store - I'll need to clear some space here in the computer room to store it all.

[mini-rant]
The visit to my local art supply store was a considerable disappointment. It's been a few years since I was in there - and discovering they had moved and downsized was an unpleasant surprise, if I had to guess, having two major chain craft stores move in within a few blocks has hit them pretty hard. But frankly, there's no excuse to have a store so cramped you can hardly move and employees who answer simple questions (like "can you order me this?") with "I dunno".
[end mini-rant]

Since here on the fringes of civilization, that store is pretty much my only hope - I'm thinking there will be a lot of mail order in my future.

The contractor is done with the garage, now to arrange for a weekend when a couple of friends can come over and help me build the shelving. Another milestone passed on the route to a binding bench!

[Note, 8/18/07 - this was originally just a reflection, but since it also includes a rant I'm including it there as well. I'll have to get back to the original reflection someday.]