When I joined Bookworm, my library work included mending and covering of books. As a child, my mother always covered all my text books and notebooks as she felt that I would never be able to do a good job of it. My younger sister Vandana, had helped me join the Bookworm library and I learned mending and covering of books from her.
As I focussed on learning how to do it well, it began to feel like meditation for me and I became better and better at this task. Every vacation, all the books that have gone to different schools come back to the library. The most important work is to check these books, mend them, cover them and let them rest.
During the vacations, we have many interns who join the library to gain some work experience. Vandana and I have been responsible for teaching the interns how to mend and cover books properly. And it is not just interns, but I have demonstrated mending and covering to new colleagues too. While it may seem a routine task to some, it is important to do it well, as many children will handle the books and not all of them will be careful with the books.
The most special experience for me this year was to conduct a workshop on mending and covering for the Library Educators Course participants. When we received a mail from Sujata Ma’am about this, I was very nervous. However, after discussing this with Deepali, we planned clearly how to conduct it. It was a Friday and we had school sessions in the morning. After school, I returned to the library and gathered torn books which had been kept aside for mending. We packed all the other material required for this workshop. When we reached the Retreat Centre at Old Goa, the participants were having a tea break. And our workshop was after the break.
We introduced ourselves to the participants and explained to them how we do mending and covering. All the participants listened attentively and many showed interest in mending. To understand if they had learnt what we had explained, we gave all the groups some books to mend and cover. All the participants excitedly followed our instructions and mended and covered books.
I was very happy after this workshop as I know that I have mastered something that my mother had felt once upon a time that I would never be able to do properly. This workshop has given me a lot of confidence.