A retired librarian changed how I think about endpapers

I always used plain white paper for endpapers because that's how I learned. Last year a woman brought in a old family bible to get repaired and she commented on the plain endpapers I used. She said her grandma always picked out patterned paper because it was the first thing you see when you open a book. It stuck with me and now I keep a small selection of nice patterned papers on hand. Has anyone else had a customer change how they do a basic step?

3 comments

3 Comments

jasonf1716d ago

Grandma had patterned endpapers for every book? That kind of dedication is wild to me. I've been doing this for like 8 years and never once thought about the endpapers beyond "white and cheap." Now I'm lowkey mad at myself for never asking old customers about their preferences, because clearly people have strong feelings about this stuff.

torres.grant15d ago

Wait, hold on. @lindal13 did he really bring in his own books for that? That's insane.

lindal1315d ago

My friend Helen used to work in a tiny bookshop downtown, and she had this one older gentleman who would come in every month. One day he brought in a stack of his own books and asked if they could replace the endpapers with a maroon pattern that matched his study. She said he was very particular about it, talked about how the endpaper should "hold the feeling of the room" when you opened the book. After that she started asking every customer about their preferences, and you'd be surprised how many people had opinions on things like that.