Button Factory

I spend my days binding books by hand. Fold the paper over, crease the fold, set it to the side. They’re a glimpse of a time long ago when we didn’t have the technology to do this any other way. Once all the pages to create a signature are ready, I lay them, one inside the other, and punch the holes. Then, one day, someone (I’ve never bothered to learn who) invented a machine that could do this same thing so much faster. Then, I take a needle and sew the signature together. When that person invented the machines that could do my job, I wonder if they ever thought a human would choose to do it instead. Once all the signatures are complete, I stack them together, and they become someone else’s work. I wonder if the people who used to bind books back then would think that I’m crazy, for choosing to do what they may have hated instead of letting technology carry this work forward.

As we sit around the lunch table, some of the people I work with talk about how much they hate that most books are not bound by hand anymore, with the art that it used to be fading out of memory. I wonder what it would be like if I worked at a factory that made books.