Bindery

“ The lower grades are seldom used, the better qualities being mostly taken.
To-day velvet is still used in the bindery, chiefly as a covering for portfolios, albums, and addresses, and except for metal clasps remains without ornamentation.
The bookbinder's best material, to which is given the choicest, most expensive, and most painstaking decoration, is leather in its various kinds. Sheep-skin, undyed or split and dyed, serves for school books and other cheap work. Goat-skin and morocco are better kinds, the latter being preferable both as regards price and quality. ”

“ Just as the printing office of William Parks and his successors stood on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg two centuries ago, so it stands again today on its original site. Again today it includes a bindery where gentlemen and ladies may bespeak books to be bound or rebound in the most exact manner and the most elegant taste. The master binder assures his patrons that he uses only the best materials and can, if they so wish, decorate a volume with the egg, the Mousetrap, or any other roll or ornament in his stock that pleases their fancy. ”

“ The outside binder knows that the librarian who operates a bindery in his own building knows something about the cost of binding, and he realizes that unless his prices are reasonable and his work good he need not expect to be favored. ”

“ The bindery trade in New York employs about five thousand women, a third of all the women at work in binderies in the United States. A few are at work in hand binderies, where craftsmen of two or three centuries ago would find tools and methods not entirely unfamiliar. ”

“ As the large libraries have a good deal of work which the average commercial binder does not care to take, like map mounting, rare-book mending, and ordinary book repairs, the ideal condition for them would be a small bindery with two or three hands, in the building; a contract for all ordinary binding and rebinding with an outsider, and the purchase of many new books especially bound direct from the sheets. ”

“ The school book, perhaps the most despised branch of work in the bindery, has unjustly come to be treated as a sort of step-child by bookbinder and bookseller. Although everything has been cut down as finely as possible as regards paper and printing, yet the cost of binding must also be cut down, and a profit on the whole is still looked for. Thus it is that school books can only be produced by machinery. ”

“ Then I'm really of some importance here at last. [A long happy sigh] Oh dear, how happy I am. I'd never have believed I could have enjoyed the smell of a bindery so. [Sniffing] Glue, and white of egg, and old leather; it's lovely! ”

“ In the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the Press showed a considerable number of decorated bindings in addition to the exhibits from the other departments. The Oxford Press designs are very varied in character and include some excellent 36inlays; they are made by the more artistic among the workmen, and speak highly for the level of taste attained in the bindery. ”

“ Juvenile books, especially, often go to the bindery with missing pages. Many times these missing pages are not especially important and in these cases it seems more economical to bind the book than to buy a new copy. If the number of missing pages is not too great they may be typewritten from other copies. Books other than fiction or juvenile should seldom be bound in an imperfect condition.
Another exception to the rule of sending books uncollated is in the case of popular periodicals, such as Scribner's, Harper's, Century, etc., where the library has only one copy which it binds. ”

“ A few libraries have had a dummy back made for each periodical showing color and kind of material in addition to other details. But the cost of a dummy is not slight and a new one must be made whenever any change in title or size occurs. Large college or reference libraries may need dummy backs for their numerous sets of foreign periodicals having various marks, such as umlauts, etc., over or under letters. When a library operates its own bindery it is possible to send the last bound volume as a sample. ”

“ But in the hands of men who possess the spark of creative artistry, bookbinding can be more than pure craft work. Although the binder’s decorative tools are forever prefixed, each to reproduce its own set and simple pattern, they are infinitely flexible in the ways they can be combined. It is not the tool that makes a binding beautiful or ugly, but the hand that holds the tool—and even more the mind and eye that guide the hand. The history of bookbinding is studded with the names of men who were true artists in leather. ”

“ Books subject to much wear should be sewn on tapes, not on strings; should have cloth joints, tight backs, and a tough, flexible leather, or a good, smooth cloth of cotton or linen such as is now much used by good binders. Most of the expensive leather, and all cheap leather, rots in a short time; good cloth does not. Very few libraries can afford luxurious binding. Good material, strong sewing, and a moderate degree of skill and taste in finishing are all they can pay for. Learn to tell a substantial piece of work when you see it, and insist that you get such from your binder. ”

“ That this circular work was not the haphazard freak of a single binder we can see from the fact that several of the dies are wider at the top than at the bottom, so that when placed together side by side they would naturally work round to a circular form, like the stones forming the arch of a bridge. These dies are in many cases foreign in design and may have been introduced by Rood, the first printer, but the style of binding is essentially English. Some bindings of a rather similar appearance, though never with any circular ornament, were produced in the Low Countries. ”

“ The String uses a string or elastic band to hold the magazine. In the one called the Springfield, first used in Los Angeles in 1890, the string passes through the magazine, between sections, and through three holes in the back of the binder in a binder’s stitch.
The Newark Library has tried many kinds of material for binders. Thin book cloth soon wears out. Heavy and strong cloth soon gets soiled. Full leather is very expensive, unless the leather used is light and poor, and then it soon wears out. Good leather backs outwear sides of any cloth. ”

“ Very little the binder had done so far would be visible in the finished product. But at this point he could begin to put his artistry on display. Selecting silk thread in two colors to suit his taste, he bound a narrow piece of leather across both the top and bottom of the spine, completely covering them with something like a buttonhole stitch. These “headbands” added little to the strength but much to the appearance of a book. Careful binders said that a book should no more be seen in a library without headbands than a gentleman should appear in public minus a collar. ”

“ When speaking of fragments of books as binder’s waste, I mean books which have been in circulation, and have been thrown away as useless. The value of such fragments is principally in themselves. They may or may not be of interest. But by printer’s waste I mean ... waste, proof, or cancelled sheets in the printer’s office, which, in the early days when printers were their own bookbinders, would be used by the bookbinder for lining the boards, or the centres of quires, of books bound in the same office where they were printed. ”

“ Let the young binder especially bear this in mind: it is a defect which nothing can effectually remedy; instead of an embellishment it is a detriment to the binding, and his reputation as a clever workman is consequently placed in jeopardy.
Preparatory to gilding, the back must be compassed off and carefully marked with a folding-stick and a straight-edge or piece of vellum, wherever it is intended to run a straight line. This serves as a guide when the gold is laid on. For work of the best class, the fillets must be first put in blind, and the tooling done in the same manner. ”

“ When the backs of sections are very badly worn he will agree to whipstitch, but will use the old method. The librarian will insist not only that nine-tenths of fiction and juvenile books must be overcast, but that a special kind of overcasting must be used. The binders who make a specialty of library work do all this as a matter of course. At least one binder tests the thickness, tensile strength and other qualities of the paper and sews each book in the way that experience has shown to be the best. ”

“ I have got on my shelves now a Jenson’s Latin Pliny, which, in spite of its beautiful type and handsome painted ornaments, I dare scarcely look at, because the binder (adjectives fail me here) has chopped off two-thirds of the tail margin: such stupidities are like a man with his coat buttoned up behind, or a lady with her bonnet on hind-side foremost.
Before I finish I should like to say a word concerning large-paper copies. I am clean against them, though I have sinned a good deal in that way myself, but that was in the days of ignorance, and I petition for pardon on that ground only. ”

“ PART I. FORWARDING.
|3| THE ART OF BOOKBINDING. CHAPTER I. FOLDING. We commence with folding. It is generally the first thing the binder has to do with a book. The sheets are either supplied by the publisher or printer (mostly the printer) ; should the amateur wish to have his books in sheets, he may generally get them by asking his bookseller for them. It is necessary that they be carefully folded, for unless they are perfectly even, it is impossible that the margins (the blank space round the print) can be uniform when the book is cut. ”

“ Having decided on the pattern of decoration he wished to apply, the binder heated the appropriate brass tools to “blind in” the design. The tools had to be hot enough to make a sharp impression in the leather, but not hot enough 30 to burn it. Each had to be pressed into the leather with just the right weight—not too much and not too little—to produce the desired effect. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. Marbling, Gilding, &c., the Edges and Headbanding.
The edges of a book are nearly always finished off in some way or another, as the plain white edges would quickly become soiled. As a matter of fact, the binder always uses a covering of gold or colour for this purpose, and care should be taken that this way of treating the edges is decorative and not the reverse.
In small binderies the edge is most usually sprinkled. A small brush with a handle (such as is used for blacking shoes) is dipped into a very thin coloured liquid and rubbed over a fine sieve which is fixed in a frame. ”

“ The paper-maker, the printer and the binder would be more likely to work intelligently if they had some mutual knowledge of each other’s needs and limitations. The habit has been growing for some time of looking on the binding of a book as the most important thing in connexion with it. ”

“ The volume must not only be well protected, but seem so. It should be solid, compact, square-edged, and enclosed in firm boards of a stoutness proportionate to its size, and these should be covered with leather at once pliable and strong. Unless it present this appearance, it will be unsatisfactory in spite of the richest colours and the most elaborate ornament. Thus far the mere mechanical skill of the binder goes. In the choice of his style of binding, and in the decoration of his book, if he perform his task with taste and skill, he rises to the rank of an artist. ”

“ If the book was subjected to hard wear the thread cut into the paper.
Figure 4.—Old-fashioned whipstitching. Each section is sewed separately.
Today every progressive library binder has a special method of overcasting and each claims that his method is the best. Librarians, however, can see many points of resemblance between them, and few points of difference. In actual wearing qualities the sewing of one seems as good as that of another. When properly done the sewing prescribed by all of the methods is still in good condition when the books have to be withdrawn from circulation. ”

“ Behind him, a drawn-out line of machines and plodding teams were moving on at measured distances, binder after binder, half-hidden by the tall oats that went down before them with a harsh crackle. Where they passed, men toiled hard among the flung-out sheaves, and the trampling of weary horses, rasp and tinkle of the knives, and the clash of the binders' wooden arms rang far across the great dusky plain. The sounds of strenuous activity had risen since the sun first crept up above the vast sweep of grass, and continued through the burning heat of the day ”

“ Will you want a new binder or a back-set plow this fall?"
"We'll want a binder," answered his hostess, who was a woman of somewhat yielding nature. "Still, I guess we'll get it from Grantly."
"His things are good enough, though he stands out for the top price," responded Nevis, who was too wise to disparage openly a rival's goods. "Just now, however, I'm rather loaded up, and the orders aren't coming along, so I'm making a special cut. I'll knock an extra four dollars off the list figure for the binder, and wait for the money until you have hauled in your wheat." ”

“ Props, either to screw upon the shelves, or made of thick blocks of wood, or of tin folded at right angles, are useful for preventing books falling about in a slovenly manner. Reading cases are necessary for periodicals and choice bindings; periodical cases are made conveniently of wood with strong leather backs. In order to keep the consecutive numbers of current periodicals and newspapers clean and in perfect order, some kind of temporary binder is required. The contents of the different shelves or recesses may be printed on labels made of leather or cloth. ”

“ Sometimes the book’s back is still further reinforced by pasting or gluing to it a piece of vellum, leather or heavy cloth before the process of putting on the cover begins.
Set rules for sewing books should not be laid down. Each book is treated by the skillful binder, or should be, in accordance with the character of its paper, the number of inserts, the thickness of the paper, the size of the signatures, the size of the leaves, the use it is to receive, and other facts. The good binder binds each book well according to its kind. ”