The Hall County Library System is offering people an opportunity to give beloved old books a second life.

The Gainesville branch is holding Bible and Old Book Repair Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Jack Kyle, a representative of the National Library Bindery, will be on hand to give free estimates on the cost of repairing or restoring valued books or family Bibles. Books to be repaired at the Bindery Company in Roswell will be returned to the downtown branch for pickup within two months.

“They do everything from cookbooks that are falling apart to big old family Bibles,” said Ronda Sanders, the genealogy and local history librarian for the Hall County Library System.

The Bible and Old Book Repair Day is one of the library’s longest running programs.

“We’ve held this for over 30 years,” Sanders said.

Many people bring in family Bibles for repair. Sanders said the Bibles often contain key dates in a family’s history.

“The spines on those tend to fall apart,” Sanders said. “Usually in the middle of that, they’ll have family history, births, marriages, deaths and that type of information. They’re just a treasure trove (for genealogists).”

Sanders said in the past, people who have collected magazines through the years will bring them in to have them bound together into one volume.

“We even had one church one time that, instead of buying all new hymn books, they brought their hymn books in and he was able to give them a good price on having all their hymn books rebound,” Sanders said.

Sanders said the event gives people a chance to have their old books appraised in town. Sanders said there is no binding company that she knows of in Hall County.

“Most people don’t want to drive down to Roswell,” she said.