I had a clumsy episode earlier this afternoon. I had too many things in my arms. When I set my cup of green tea on the counter next to my purse, I must have set it down wrong because it tipped over. In the confusion, I dropped my reinforced concrete design textbook onto the tile floor in the kitchen. I suppose the textbook landed on the perfect stress point because both sides of the book spine ripped. Since I'm the outright owner of the book and it did not wake up my baby niece visiting from Germany, it wasn't a catastrophe. Here's a picture of the damaged textbook.
Here's the picture of the other side of the textbook.
So I called up FedEx to see if they could rebind it for me/fix it so I wouldn't have to buy binding tape and such other book repair items that would be much more expensive than having FedEx fix it (assuming it was a reasonable price). The guy on the phone said it would cost $5 and that they could do it. I drove over there and went in the store. The guy at the counter examined the book and said they couldn't fix it. I was disappointed because I thought I had been a smart shopper to call and check beforehand and they changed their story when I reached the store, but I figured I would just have to take it home and fix it myself.
My mom found various kinds of tape available around the house (which are shown here).
I started my repair by making scotch tape circles with tape and laying them flat on the cardboard inner spine. This process is shown with the following pictures.
I had to use two pieces because the spine was really long.
Note: You can see my index page casualty above. Don't worry! I tape that page back together next.
Then, I turned the book so the weight was centered on the book spine to help the scotch tape adhere (granted, this might only be a temporary fix given that it is scotch tape).
Next, I tackled the back index page to make that page legible for future use. I appreciate indexes from my textbooks, so I'd rather be able to read those pages. It took a lot of strategic placement of scotch tape to get the page back together.
The last thing I tackled was the actual outside spine of the book. For this fix, I used the clear plastic shipping tape. First, I lined the tears up with the corresponding sides. Then, I cut the tape pieces with scissors at a length of the entire spine to make the fix as strong as possible. After this step, I carefully placed the tape along the book spine. One side of the tape was at the middle of the book spine to the front of the book cover. Pictures of this taping process are provided below.
I cut the piece of tape on the end so only a tiny bit was off the end. Then, I tucked it along the edge.
Voila! I can read my textbook and it's not falling apart. This is what the book looks like when it's open.
It's too bad that FedEx did not want to fix it for me for $5 because I would have bragged about them on Facebook and my blog, providing them with free advertising.
However, fixing a textbook spine on my own was really awesome and I was able to use whatever tape was lying around the house.
A proper fix might have involved binding tape, book glue, and sewing practices. I did work in a library for a bit, so I have seen and used materials to repair older books (the kinds worthy of treasure). Then again, this break of the sides of the spine was minor and the page binding of the spine was mostly intact.
As such, this method of textbook repair might not work for someone with a more severe break on their book. Even so, I thought I would go ahead and share how I fixed mine in case it helps anyone else.
It is ironic that my reinforced concrete design textbook has to have its spine reinforced with tape. Hopefully, my book will last through my summer class and beyond that for when I work as a professional engineer and need to use it as a reference book.
Update: This textbook did survive my summer class with these fixes and I earned an A.
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