As the title indicates these notes have been compiled in the hope that they may be of assistance to librarians in caring for the binding and rebinding of library books. They hardly touch upon publishers’ binding or the decoration of bindings. The suggestions and advice they give should not be taken as final, for the binding and rebinding question is not yet settled. They may help some to carry out more successfully their own inquiries and experiments. If good binders were more common librarians would need little of the information here briefly set forth. But under the present conditions of the bookbinder’s art in this country librarians themselves must often furnish considerable expert knowledge, if they wish their work well done.

I have refrained from going much into the details of the process of binding. The details can only be made clear by means of illustrations, and have already been most admirably set forth in Douglas Cockerell’s book. I have tried to draw attention to the important points. The librarian ought to know good results when he sees them, or at least when he tests them on his books; the details of every step he can learn if he will, by a little practice and a good deal of observation. No librarian should try to bind or to conduct personally his own bindery. Binding is a special trade, and skill and speed in it come only by long practice. The librarian cannot become a skilled binder. He should become familiar with the results of the binding he gets by a study of his books. If he finds they do not wear well, but rot, break or show loose pages, let him keep a few statistics, and if he learns he is wasting money on cheap work or poor material, let him change his material and his processes, and perhaps his binder. I hope this book may lead some to test the work they are now getting, and may help some to get more satisfactory workmanship and more enduring materials. It is not a guide to the craft of binding. To get good binding, go to a good binder; to learn about the binding craft, practice it and read Cockerell; to discover if your binding is good, watch it and gather statistics of its wear.

Much of the information, many reports of experiences and many suggestions will be found in the lists of leathers, etc., and definitions of terms used in binding. It seemed unwise to repeat them as part of a connected text.

In considering the subject of economical binding and rebinding for libraries, we find that we are entirely without standards. We have no figures for comparisons. Librarians have, save in a very few cases, made no study of the comparative value of bindings, either of original cloth or of the rebindings they have had put on their books. If a few librarians would note the number of times books can be issued without rebinding after they are received in the original publisher’s cloth, and how many issues they will stand after they have been once, or twice, rebound, they would, in a few months, have data from which they could draw helpful conclusions in regard to the comparative value of bindings and rebindings.

The test of a binding, whether publisher’s original, special from the sheets, or a rebinding, lies, for ordinary lending books, in the ratio of its cost to the number of times the book it covers is lent for home use before being discarded. This ratio has rarely been systematically noted.

To the inquiry, does the method of rebinding which my library now employs give the best possible return for the money spent? most librarians must reply that they do not know.

Reference and college libraries are often also much in the dark. The continued quite general use for permanent bindings of a leather which tests have shown will not last over 25 or 30 years at the most is an evidence of this.

In England, as is well known, a good many years of careful observation and comparison of experiments have led a large number of librarians to the conclusion which some American librarians also accept, that it is the part of sound economy to have books carefully bound directly from publishers’ sheets, even though the prices of such bindings seem at first unduly high.

I sent a letter of inquiry to a large number of libraries asking for detailed information about the wear of books in publishers’ bindings and in the one or more rebindings which were placed on them. Replies were received from 18 libraries, giving brief life histories of 74 books. Definite conclusions cannot be drawn from these reports, as librarians differ much in their ways of treating books. Some rebind them as soon as they show serious signs of wear; others keep them in circulation long after they have begun to go to pieces. But the figures indicate that it would pay these libraries, as it probably would all others, to get most of the books which are to be subjected to much handling strongly bound direct from publishers’ sheets.

The reports show that 74 books cost, including first price, rebinding and labor of handling for rebinding, an average of $1.38 each; that they were lent an average of 79 times in the two states, new and rebound; and that they were out of use an average of five weeks while being rebound. A book of a nature similar to those reported on, well-bound from publishers’ sheets costs about $1.50; can be lent from 100 to 150 times and loses no time in being rebound.

Of these books 52 were rebound a second time at an average cost, including labor in preparation, of 40 cents; were out of use an average of five weeks; and were lent an average of 43 times each in this second binding. The complete history of the books a second time rebound is as follows:

These figures do not tell the whole story. The book bound strongly and flexibly from publishers’ sheets is from the first more convenient to handle and pleasanter to read, and usually looks better throughout all its one long life than do, on the average, those books which twice or thrice in their histories get into a broken-backed, loose-leaved, generally disreputable condition. Furthermore, and this is most important, a book is most wanted in a library when it is new; if sent out to be rebound for five and a half weeks after it has been lent 32 times it is out of use just when it is most in demand; and the library loses in its effectiveness—that is, in the service it can render its public for the money expended—much more than the mere difference in the money cost of the two kinds of binding would indicate. The durable first binding gives us a book which can be in constant service from 100 to 150 times from the day it goes to the shelves, just when it is most needed. A book once or twice rebound in the first few months of its life is a special source of annoyance—the paradox is permissible—by its very absence.

In the Newark library an examination of 56 books, chiefly novels, from 15 or 20 different publishers, shows that on the average they were lent in publishers’ binding only 25 times each before being rebound; and that 42 books in the juvenile department were lent in the publishers’ binding an average of only 17 times each.

In bindings and rebindings one of the most essential things to be secured is ease of opening. A book that opens out easily, and lies flat without being pressed or held in position, will probably keep clean and whole for more than twice as many lendings as one that is held together tightly at the back. As a great many of the library books which call for rebindings have to be trimmed at the back and overcast, it is essential that the overcast sewing be of a flexible nature, one that permits of the easy opening of the book. Probably few of the factors in book construction and book injury have been more effective than the tight binding, held open with difficulty, which is produced by nearly all of the current overcasting or whipstitching.

Another point that cannot be too strongly insisted on is that books not only differ from one another in their natures and so require different treatment in binding; but also differ in the use they are to receive, and require different bindings on that account.

It should be understood that bookbinding is a craft in the best sense of that word. To bind a book well calls for good judgment and care at every step. The librarian can draw up schedules with infinity of detail, and make them as correct as he may please, basing them on experience without end; and the binder, so far as material and processes are concerned, may seem to follow these specifications exactly, and still may produce poor bindings. To secure a good binding the spirit of the binder must go into it. In drawing the thread, in paring and placing the leather, in applying the paste and glue, and in every other of the many processes involved, the man without good will, as the man without skill, can spoil the whole binding. Librarians should learn to esteem bookbinding highly. It is a craft which lies close to them. It is preËminently their business to encourage it to grow in excellence. They should develop their local binder’s interest in his calling, stand by him, urge him on to better work, and pay him adequately for it.

One may frankly say that the character of binding done in nearly all libraries in America has been, up to the present time, a discredit to the library profession. We owe it to ourselves to take up this craft and do what we can to elevate it.

One objection sometimes made to bindings of the highest grade is that they last too long; and after the book is too greatly soiled and tattered within to be longer kept, the binding itself still holds, showing that more care has been put into its construction, and consequently more cost, than it needed. The objection needs only to be stated for its absurdity to be seen. The thorough binder, the skilled craftsman, adapts his binding to the book and to the use, as far as he can judge of it, which it is to receive.

He binds each book so well that it will hold together to the end of time; or until its paper fairly drops to pieces. He can issue with each volume no guarantee that it will not receive more than its proper baptism of dirt from careless borrowers long before the paper in it begins to give way and fray out. The binder’s obligation is to bind the book well. It is the librarian’s business to see that the book is, as to its interior, well treated. As to its binding lasting too long, why should the librarian concern himself about the shell after the kernel is eaten? It should be noted again, however, that a book well bound, opening easily, and lying open without pressure from fingers or thumbs, keeps clean many times longer than one that opens hard.

The sum of all my observations is, the best is the cheapest. If a book is worth binding let it be bound by the best man available. If possible, buy books so well bound from the publishers’ sheets, that they will never need to be bound again.