Library Summer Camp!

Posted October 31, 2025 by Michaela O'Gara-Pratt

Did you know that as a Simmons SLIS student you could attend librarian summer camp? 

Well…not technically summer camp, but you can take LIS 447: Collections Maintenance with Professor Donia Conn. This two week course, taking place during the summer semester at the North Bennet Street School, feels a lot like a very cool, very niche summer camp. 

I was lucky to take this course over the summer of 2025. When I toured Simmons in 2023, the North Bennet Street School came up in conversation because I knew a few people who had taken courses there. The student ambassador giving the tour quickly shared that Simmons offered a course taught by one of their professors at the North Bennet Street School because they had the studio space and book binding equipment for the course. I was excited to learn about the course and hoped I would be able to squeeze it into my schedule. 

I am happy to report that the course was everything I hoped it would be. During our two weeks in the North End, I learned about paper composition and how paper production has changed over the years. We also learned about the different tissues used to repair paper and how to make small repairs to rips and tears on paper. In addition, we learned about book covers, spines, and how to reinforce weak spots or make total replacements to parts of the book as necessary. The goal of the class was to help librarians keep their collection in good condition and circulating for as long as possible. In many cases, it is less expensive to be able to do in-house simple repairs to the material than it is to purchase new copies. 

Example of damage to a book that we repaired in class

This course was particularly engaging for me because at the time of taking it, I was also interning at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and thinking a lot about materials. As part of my internship, I interacted a lot with conservation, and I was also involved in the packing and storage of art objects. This introduction to basic book conservation and restoration paired neatly with the work I was observing at the Museum. When a historic art book came on loan to the Museum, I was able to talk to the courier, a book conservator by trade, about the materials she used to take care of it. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I could follow her conversation based on my experience taking Collections Maintenance.

SLIS has so many unique courses to choose from, sometimes I wish the master’s degree program was four years instead of two. It is hard to choose what electives to take! However, if you are interested in book repair work, I definitely recommend keeping your eyes peeled for this course offering.