I was AWOL yesterday because of a field trip we took at work. When I started working at the library in January I had no idea we’d get to take field trips. Where did we go? We visited West Publishing, one of the largest legal publishers in the United States. Their 400 acre campus just happens to be in the burbs.

We arrived at 10 in the morning along with librarians from the other three university law libraries in the area. We were given updates about various online Westlaw products and our rep announced that she will be retiring and burst into tears. Then they fed us lunch. But the only veg option was a Caesar salad that had creamy dressing on it that I new wouldn’t be vegan. And the fruit they provided was on a cheesecake like thing. Good thing I brought my own lunch.

After lunch the tour of the place began. This place is so huge they have their own postal code and their shipping operation is so large they are designated as a post office. There is a convenience store, a dry cleaners, a flower shop, a Caribou coffee, and several cafeterias. We were taken to the printing warehouse which takes up the area of three football fields. They showed us the rolls of paper, delivered by rail from Wisconsin, that when unrolled will stretch 12 miles per roll. The paper warehouse is emptied and refilled every 48 hours. Ink comes in huge barrels. The glue for the books comes in big boxes of solid beads that are melted in the binding machine.

We got to watch them making the aluminum plates used for printing large runs of over 500 volumes. Smaller runs are all digital. We got to see the hardcovers before anything was printed on them and then we got see the covers being stamped with their titles and gold leaf and volume numbers. There are forklifts driving around delivering supplies to the various presses and binding machines and then removing palates of finished product to take to the next part of the process.

West publishes and prints their own legal materials but they also do the printing for other publishers. They had a display case of some of the things they have printed. Inside was a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a couple of Clive Cussler books, and several other novels and books of nonfiction.

We were also taken to meet technical support, the law librarians who answer questions over the phone and help Westlaw users craft good searches, and we met the editorial staff who put together the reporters–regional law reports that list all the information about recent cases.

It was a fun tour but afterwards I was so tired. All that walking and standing, and the noise of the presses and the bindery and stamp machines is deafening. All the workers were wearing earplugs but we didn’t get any. I don’t know what I imagined a major printing facility would look like but it wasn’t what I saw. It really was amazing.

On a side note, my blog, along with several others I am sure you will recognize, was included on a 100 Best Blogs for School Librarians list. Cool.