A Book for All Readers / An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries

by Ainsworth Rand Spofford

1. The book may be condemned as imperfect, and a new copy purchased.

2. The missing part may be restored from a perfect copy of the same work, by copying the portions of the text wanting, and inserting them where they belong. This can be done with a pen, and the written deficiency neatly inserted, in fac-simile of the type, or in ordinary script hand; or else the part wanting may be photographed or heliotyped by the best modern process from a duplicate copy of the book.

3. If the book is of very recent issue, the publishers may furnish a signature or sheet which would make good the deficiency, from the "imperfections" left in the bindery, after making up the edition of the work.

In most cases, the last named means of replacement will not be found available. The first, or buying a fresh copy, may entail a greater expense than the library authorities would deem proper at the time, and it might be preferred to continue the book in use, with a slight imperfection.

The second method, more or less troublesome according to circumstances, or the extent of the matter to be copied is sometimes the most economical. Of course, it is subject to the drawback of not being, when done, a bona fide or genuine copy of the book as published. This diminishes the commercial value of even the rarest book, although so fully restored as to text that the reader has it all before him, so that it supplies every requisite of a perfect copy for the purposes of a public library, or a private owner who is not a connoisseur in books.

When the corners of a book are found to be broken (as often happens by falling to the floor or severe handling) the book may be restored by a treatment which will give it new leather corners. With paste or glue well rubbed in, apply thick brown paper on the corners, which, when dry, will be as hard as desired, and ready to receive the leather. Then the sides may be covered with marbled paper or cloth, and the volume is restored.

When the back of a book becomes loose, the remedy is to take it out of the cover, re-sew it, and glue it firmly into the former back. This will of course render the back of the volume more rigid, but, in compensation, it will be more durable.

In these cases of loose or broken backs, the study should be to save the leather cover and the boards or sides of the book intact, so as to diminish by more than one-half the cost of repair. As the volume cannot be restored to a solid and safe condition without being re-sewed, it may be carefully separated from the cover by cutting the cords or bands at their junction with the boards, then slowly stripping the book out of its cover, little by little, and treating the sheets when separated as already indicated in the chapter on rebinding.

One of the most common defacements which library books undergo is marking up the margins with comments or references in pencil. Of course no thoughtful reader would be guilty of this practice, but thoughtless readers are often in the majority, and the books they read or fancy that they read, get such silly commentaries on the margins as these: "beautiful," "very sad," "perfectly splendid," "I think Becky is horrid," or, "this book ends badly." Such vile practices or defacements are not always traceable to the true offender, especially in a circulating library, where the hours are so busy as to prevent the librarian from looking through the volumes as they come in from the readers. But if detected, as they may be after a few trials of suspected parties, by giving them out books known to be clean and free from pencil marks when issued to them, the reader should be required always to rub out his own marks, as a wholesome object-lesson for the future. The same course should be pursued with any reader detected in scribbling on the margin of any book which is being read within the library. Incorrigible cases, amounting to malicious marking up of books, should be visited by severe penalties—even to the denial of further library privileges to the offender.

Not long ago, I bought at an auction sale a copy of the first edition of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which was found on receipt to be defaced by marking dozens of verses in the margin with black lines drawn along them, absolutely with pen and ink! The owner of that book, who did the ruthless deed, never reflected that it might fall into hands where his indelible folly would be sharply denounced.