My best week ever started with a box of water damaged books from the 1920s

A local library in Springfield gave me a box of 12 old books they thought were trash, all with bad water stains and loose spines. I spent the whole week carefully drying, cleaning, and rebacking them, and the feeling of saving that history was just amazing. Has anyone else had a big save like that with a project everyone else gave up on?

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emma7683mo ago

the 1920s books were probably printed on acidic paper that degrades fast, so you saved them from turning to dust. i once rescued a 1940s cookbook that had chocolate stains on the baking pages and a weird note about "Aunt Marge's secret" tucked in the spine.

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linda6586mo ago

That's so cool you saved those books. Makes you wonder about all the hands they passed through before the library, right? Like who was reading them a hundred years ago.

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the_ruby6mo ago

Ever think about the weird notes people leave in old books? I found a grocery list from 1972 and felt weirdly judged for my own shopping.

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