A useful post: Protecting your Field Notes® Brand WASTE BOOK

A different kind of Fun Friday Resource! If you’ve read the book or even this blog, you may recall that I am a huge fan of Field Notes® Brand memo books as WASTE BOOKS. Go and look at them now.

The only problem I’ve had with them is that their covers can become worn and start to tear away. This is particularly a problem if you, like me, carry it in your hip pocket. Keeping it in a protector can help, but eventually that cover will come loose.

Fear not: Over the 30+ years that I was a library media specialist both at the high school and elementary levels, I learned some skillz, and one of those skillz has come in handy for exactly this problem.

Step 1:

Take your WASTE BOOK and measure it. Field Notes® Brand notebooks are 5½” tall.

Here, the “Paletas” special summer edition

Step 2:

Logistically, this should be Step 1: Order yourself a roll of Easy Bind® book repair tape from Kapco. It’s not exactly cheap, but I’ve had this roll for years and am nowhere close to running out, so it’s a good investment. (Doing the math: 100 feet * 12 in/foot ÷ 5.5 in/strip ÷ 3 strips = 72 WASTE BOOKS or ≈60¢ per book.)

Step 3:

Measure out the 5½” on the strip.

You will need three of these strips.

Step 4:

Here’s a special librarian trick: There is a removable strip in the middle of the strip, shown here partially peeled back for clarity. You’re going to snip off the corners to either side of that strip. There’s no need to mark them as I’ve done — that was just for illustration. This is to prevent you from having to trim non-perpendicular ends from the edges of the notebook. (Of course, if you’re the sort that trims these thins precisely, go for it.)

Step 5:

Remove that center strip…

Step 6:

Hold the sides of the strip with thumb and forefinger so that they fold back like a book or wings and the revealed adhesive stripe is “up.” Place the WASTE BOOK face down with the cover open, then position the adhesive stripe along the spine.

Step 7:

Rub the stripe down, then remove the “wings” of the strip and rub the whole thing down. (Neatness is a virtue, but don’t get too torqued about it.)

Step 8:

Repeat on the inside front cover. I’ve found it easiest to place the adhesive stripe on the cover itself, then remove the cover “wing” first and work the other “wing” into the first page.

Repeat with the back cover. You’re done!

Here’s a photo of my most recent WASTE BOOK. You can see that if I hadn’t protected it, the cover would have torn loose long ago.

Now all you have to do is put your newly protected WASTE BOOK into the leather case you made yourself at your local free art studio, like Backstreet Community Arts.

NOTE: This technique of course works on simple WASTE BOOKS other than Field Notes®.