I’ll be the first to admit it–I’m a pack rat. When I was an undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, I worked hard for four years at the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus. And during those four years, I collected every issue of the Nexus. Yes, I know how that sounds, and fortunately my parents were kind enough to let me store all my newspapers in their home.
This week, while I was back in sunny southern California taking care of my mom, I finally found a printer who could put all my newspapers together in a book: One-Stop Bindery. It is a one-stop shop that will print, collate, bind, and take care of pretty much any printing needs.
Located at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite B, One-Stop Bindery is a small office attached to a warehouse. As a future publisher, I was in awe of the warehouse. There were stacks of boxes and paper everywhere, and in between all that paper were four or five long tables, a desk-sized heavy duty stapler, several large printers, a big machine for binding books and placing covers, and a tall mechanical object that I was told could glue together hundreds of sheets of papers at once.
The owner was a nice middl-aged man who worked with his wife and daughter to complete projects. They were all very friendly, and while I was waiting for my project to be done, I found myself chatting with the daughter about Broadway shows. (Did you know that Idina Menzel fell 30 feet or so during one of her performances in Wicked, broke her rib, mostly recovered, and then did her final performance in a track suit?)
Anyway, the owner promises that they can complete most jobs within 24 to 36 hours, which is impressive once you know only three people work there. They weren’t quite equipped to complete my newspaper project (it would have taken too long to glue together the pages and give it a spine and book cover), so instead they punched three holes in each issue and used rings to hold it all together. Still, they added a cover and they were able to complete what would have been a time-consuming job for me. And, if I ever have to take out an issue, it will be easy to remove and put back. I do have to admit, it kind of pained me to see the holes in the newspaper, after I kept them in such good shape for five years.
I’d still recommend them for any binding and printing services. When I went to pick up my newspapers, I got a glimpse of their latest project: hundreds of playbills. They were gorgeous. So colorful and glossy, and I got to see the heavy duty stapler in action (the staples looked like silver thread!)
