Libraries differ as to bindings in their needs and in their possibilities. Books differ even more. No library can or should exactly follow any one style in its rebinding work. I add, however, the following directions for ordinary, much-used 12mo volumes, in the hope that they may be found suggestive. They should be read in the light of all the rest of this book, and not taken as final authority at any point.

Pull apart with great care. Remove all threads and old paste and glue. Smooth out the backs by beating. Guard the outer and inner leaves of all signatures that are broken or weak with paper or jaconet.

Loose pictures, if they are to be kept, put in with guards. Frequently in rebinding the illustrations may be dropped with no loss either to the reader’s pleasure or the cause of art.

See that the leaves are all in and complete.

No. 1. Books sewed regularly, that is, not whipstitched. Guard the first and last signatures with jaconet. If the title-page or frontispiece is an insert, paste the guard along the insert and over the first signature. This saves the labor of guarding the insert and first signature separately.

Guard with jaconet the inner side of the inside leaf of every signature that is at all worn or weak; if badly worn guard also the outer side of the outside leaf. In some cases every leaf should be guarded. But remember that guards thicken the back.

Make two sets of four-page end-sheets by folding once with the grain pieces of lithographed lining paper; and two sets of waste papers by folding once pieces of good book paper, about 60 lb. Guard the outside of the folds of all of these with jaconet, and place one of each kind at the front and back of the book, the lithograph one on the outside in each case.

Use Hayes’s standard linen thread of a weight adapted to the book. The cotton thread used in book sewing machines wears well, but is not recommended for hand-work. No. 25 is good for books with light sections, 16 for those with heavy sections, and 20 for those with medium. Sew the book on four stout but flexible tapes, each about a quarter of an inch wide. Sew all along throughout.

Leave about three-fourths of an inch of tape projecting each side when cutting off.

From here on the process is very similar for this kind of binding sewed in the ordinary way, and for No. 2, whipstitched, which follows.

No. 2. Books which are whipstitched, being in such condition or of such character that they have to be trimmed at the back, being then simply piles of loose sheets.

Cut off as little of the backs as possible. Prepare and place end sheets and waste papers as above described, except here paste the jaconet guard only along one side, the outer, of the folds of all of them. This gives firm hold for first overcast stitches.

Glue the back of the book slightly so that it may be divided into signatures of a few leaves each which will hold together.

Sew on same tapes as for a regularly sewed book.

In overcasting or whipstitching do not take up more than one-eighth of an inch for the deepest stitches. Make the signatures small and pass the needle through two of them with each stitch, taking the stitch diagonally.

Paste the lining papers to the waste sheets, all over, front and back. Paste ends of tapes on top of lining papers. Trim the book, cutting it as little as possible.

Glue the back slightly, and, when it is partly dried, round the book and then back it. In backing do not break the threads or pull them through the paper. This is especially to be guarded against on whipstitched books.

After rounding and backing, glue to the back and over onto the sides, passing beyond the jaconet guards, a strip of medium weight, soft, bleached muslin.

Measure and cut the boards, which should be of good quality, adapted to the wear the book is likely to have.

Cut the leather back, of pigskin. Do not pare it save slightly at the edges. Put a little paste on the boards to make them stay in place, and set them in place on the book.

Put on the leather, leaving the boards in place, tucking the leather in at top and bottom,—head and tail.

When the leather is partly dried, the book having been kept under slight pressure, cover the boards with keratol or appropriate cloth. Make the corner fold by first turning the cover material in straight across the corner and then bringing in the folds from right and left.

Paste the end sheets firmly down on the inside of the covers. This fastens the book securely into its case. Press until thoroughly dry.

Letter in gold with large, rather heavy, black-face letters. Reduce the lettering to as few words as possible.

No rule can be given as to the glue to be used. Let your binder be sure that what he uses is good, whether the price he pays be high or low. He can tell whether it is good or not by testing it. Glue pots should be cleaned out frequently. Glue should be treated with judgment as to heat and degree of thickness at which it is used. It is animal matter that quickly changes its character and loses its strength under wrong conditions.

The boards to be used in a book should depend, as to quality and thickness, on the character of the volume they cover. Expensive boards on a book which will probably soon be too dirty to be kept, are not essential.

Neither strings nor tapes need to be laced into the boards on ordinary library work. They hold well if carefully glued down on the inside, and very well if pasted between two boards or into a split in one.

Some books are best bound with tight backs, some with loose. There is no invariable rule in regard to this; it depends partly on the thickness of the book. Very thick volumes should have loose backs, usually.

It is usually wise to trim books when they are rebound. But this trimming should of course be as little as possible.

It is possible to whipstitch a book, even one which is printed on stiff paper, in such a way that it will be almost as flexible and open almost as easily as if it were sewed on tapes in the regular way. It is possible, but difficult. Few have done it. Few binderies, if any, in this country have workers who can and will give to the work of whipstitching the care and thought necessary to produce a good job.

Some strengthen the top and bottom of the back, the head and tail, by a piece of cloth or tape passing over the back of the signatures and held to them by the sewing in a manner difficult to describe.

Music should be sewed regularly or all along and the inside and outside sheets of all signatures should be guarded with jaconet. This guarding of the inner sheets makes the binding stronger, as the inner pages of a section always tend to work loose if much handled. The side and top squares should be about ? of an inch; but the bottom square about ? inch. This large square at the bottom raises the book on the instrument to allow the easy turning of leaves, as the pages frequently catch when the squares are the usual size all around. Newark finds half pig with Keratol sides very durable.

Large maps, drawings, etc., may be mounted on linen, jaconet, nainsook, ordinary bleached, or unbleached muslin. The material used should be five or six inches larger all around than the map to be mounted for convenience in stretching and working. Tack the cloth on a clean board, table or floor. Put the tacks very close together and tack the selvage edge first. The surface may be covered with waste paper before stretching the cloth on it. Apply a thin coat of thin paste all over. When dry, paste the map and allow it to stand about ten minutes to give it time to stretch. Lay the map on the muslin and rub it down under a stout piece of paper. Thorough rubbing down is absolutely necessary to make every part adhere. Proceed from the center outward, carefully rubbing out creases and bubbles. Dry thoroughly before taking up.

One person alone cannot mount a very large sheet.

Very small maps in books which have become somewhat worn and creased can be mounted on Japanese mending tissue. This paper is quite tough and thin, and wears well.