Most people who are interested in words are also interested in books ... I assume. So I will share this little story with you. Recently, I was visiting a Library when a hardcover book standing on display on a counter fell to the floor. All by itself. "I didn't do it", I professed, as a librarian turned to survey the fallen tome. "Its our poltergeist", she laughed, as she swept in with compassionate efficiency to restore the book to the counter. "Its the cheap bindings they are using nowadays", she added. "What's that all about?", I asked. "Even when they use thread, they don't bind the thread to the cloth properly", she explained. "So the book rests on its pages, not on the spine. Usually they just use glue. After a year or so, the glue gives way and its a mess." She returned to her desk, evidently resigned to the defoliation of our finest literature. So, what's up here, AWADians? Who will stand up for these spineless tomes? How many biblioclasms must we suffer before we rise up and demand a spine for a spine? A binding for a binding? Publishers may think they know better, but a book should be built to be read, even in these attention-deficit disordered times, not simply exhibited wedged between other unread books or lying on its backside on a coffee table.

plutarch:

In all likelihood individual buyers won't be able to make a dent. We're talking saving a couple of pennies per book, which isn't much until you multiply it by a hundred million books a year. Then we get into some half-way serious money.

Bookbinders these days don't intend books to last. In effect you are only renting the words! I've actually found that my paperbacks seem to last longer than the hardbound volumes, and I didn't know why. Now I do.

Perhaps there's someone out there who knows how to repair books or even to do preventive maintenance to keep them from suffering a # of the spine.

I did see somewhere a kit to repair books but cannot remember now where it was. Levenger's, perhaps?

Ted

In all likelihood individual buyers won't be able to make a dent.
True ... unless there are 2,743 "individual" buyers, TEd, or even 477,000 "individual" buyers "in 208 countries". If every AWADian had a say about the quality of the books they are paying for, the "dent" might register on the Richter scale. Maybe we should have an AWADian spine repair kit? Does that sound like a radical idea? Alas, readers are more likely to take up armchairs than arms.

Dear plutarch: My spine badly needs repair. If the kit you plan will cure ankylosing spondylitis, let me know.

I'll bet AnnaStrophic has some insight on book binding. Anna?

I await the AS verdict with interest.

In the meantime, I was trained in bookbinding as part of my printing apprenticeship - we had a choice of an "extra" subject to study, and I thought it might be interesting, and it was. I've forgotten all of the terms and names of the tools, but the upshot was this:

The only way to bind a book properly is by hand. Machines simply can't do the job properly. You can use machinery as part of the hand-binding process, but you have to make choices which (as yet) machines simply can't replicate. Hand binding, with or without mechanical aids, is a time-consuming process and is therefore considerably more costly than "a few pennies", I'm afraid.

The guy who tutored us was the person who worked on book repairs for many New Zealand libraries (old books, not modern stuff), and his comment was that the hardbacked books produced today will not be around in one hundred years. They would have suffered an inevitable "biblioclasm". He also commented that the paper production processes used today add the pace of deterioration because of the amount of acids which remain in even the better quality paper.

He produced a book that was nearly 400 years old that he was repairing to show us how it should be done. It was really interesting!

I apologize for not having the correct terms for what I mention below:

In our elementary school, our librarian orders books that will be mangled by the little hands of our elfin population. She orders special library editions that suffer well the certain abuse they will receive.

Occasionally, a well-meaning parent will donate a book to the library, and that donation, of course, is welcome but with reservations. Regular editions that a well-meaning parent purchases, say at Barnes & Noble, can and do fall apart after being checked out only a few times.

I have heard parents ask our librarian, after having donated a book, why their books aren't on the shelves and in the system anymore. The librarian lets them know at that point the problem with regular editions not being bound for kid abuse. Often parents will give a donation so the librarian can order the specially bound, sturdier editions.

There is a term for such editions, and, if this thread still runs next week, I'll insert it here...unless someone already knows what I'm writing about.

Best regards,
WW

Dear plutarch: My spine badly needs repair.
There is nothing wrong with your spine, wwh. I have read your postings.As a matter of fact, your example has stiffened my spine on occasion.

She orders special library editions that suffer well the certain abuse they will receive.
For that reason, if you should lose a library book and have to replace it, you will find that the cost exceeds what that book would cost in a regular retail bookstore.

Last year I got a copy of Don Quixote from the library that was very beaten up. Another kid, during one of my study halls, grabbed it and threw it on the floor, and the cover came off. After I ripped his arms off, I had to take it back to the libray for fixing. Perfectly fine now, but the breaking was hastened by about a week.

bookbinding is not that hard-- its a sometime family hobby here in the griffin household. mind you, we don't work on valuable volumes, but there are many books on bookbinding--it not to hard to get started on doing it at home. the supplies to start are rather simple. paper, cloth, needles, thread, --the hardest is the cover.. leather is the best, but expensive and hard to work with. Linen is good, but boring. leather trimmed linen is a good compromise.

blank pages are the easiest, but nowdays even printed books are easy, since many "publisher", "pagemaker" type software packages can help with the text and layout of the folios.

its fun to make a mini book-- if you make it very small, an inch and half square, you can even bind it leather.. old, un-mated leather gloves (get them end of season from the lost and found) yield just enough leather for a binding, and the leather is thin, soft and cheap enough to work with.. the technique is the same no matter how big the book, and many of the supplies, (like twill tape for the binding are actually easier to find in small sizes-- sewing--fabric stores can a large assortment.) and 4 by 6 notebooks are just the right size for folios made from 8.5 X 11 inch paper-- the best paper can be bought by the sheet, but a for practice, any old rag bond will do. Long leather gloves work for leather trim-- but you have to be very careful of book size.. its hard to get a nice 8 inch long piece of leather from a glove.

and aunts and uncles and grandparents are all suitible impressed when you hand them a book you made your self!

my daughter had (and still has) little interest in computers, but as soon as we had one, she wrote a book, printed it, photocopied, and then bound several copies. it impressed the hell out of her teachers, and she won a district wide award for her effort. what really surprized her, was almost none of her teachers knew anything about book binding, and her soft cover (cardstock) binding was as simple as you can get. since her mother, father and older brother all knew how, and had created books (of various quality, none noteworthy) she just thought every knew how to do it.

my son still makes books as gifts.. one helped turn a girlfriend into a spouse.

(somewhere on the web--I read it ages ago, there is recipe for neutralizing the acid in paper.. you dampen the paper with the solution, and then dry them rapidly, not good for book, but works fine for a newspaper clipping.. ..)

my son still makes books as gifts.. one helped turn a girlfriend into a spouse.

Helen, that is one of the sweetest things I have ever heard.