Bindery Preparations manages the flow of books from the commercial binder. The library’s current binding contract is with Heckman: Bindery of North Manchester, Indiana. Bindery Prep collates, inspects, and prepares monographs and serials for twenty-one libraries for commercial binding in accordance with the current binding contract.

A volume should have a maximum turn-around time of six weeks; exceptions are when the commercial binder has made an error. Errors are returned to the binder in the following shipment for correction, which will add four additional weeks before the volume is returned to the library.

Library units apply the MIRLYN item process status code “BD” to books when they send them to Bindery Prep, so the public catalog shows the status note “At Bindery.” Currently each library has a quota for both monographs and serials. The quotas are set at the beginning of the new fiscal year.