For the small library the problem is not an important one, since it is entirely feasible in such libraries to place current numbers without covers on reading room tables, or to cover them with tough paper. Mr. Dana advocates using most magazines without binders even in the reading room of a large library. Possibly this may be done advantageously in some libraries, but it will depend upon the atmosphere of the city, the character of those who use the library and the ease with which assistants can keep all readers under observation. Librarians for the most part will continue to believe that a temporary binder of one kind or another is necessary for current periodicals in the general reading room.
Binders in the reading room serve two purposes. They protect the magazine and they help to remind readers that the magazines are public property. Some magazines—the Scientific American, for example—are very thin and may be easily folded and put into an inside pocket. A binder does not prevent theft, but its tendency is to reduce it.
The qualifications of a good binder are:
1. Ease of fastening, together with difficulty in removing magazines by the uninitiated.
2. Comparative ease of holding in the hand.
3. Durability of surface and of device used for fastening the magazine.
4. Preservation of the magazine without injury.
5. Firmness when finally fastened.
Even the best magazine binders are far from being perfect in any of these requirements, except in ease with which they are fastened.
There are many kinds of magazine binders. Mr. Dana, in the second edition of his "Notes on bookbinding for libraries," mentions by name twelve different makes; and as many more, some of which are equally good, are known to the writer. But were there twice as many it is probable that they would fall, as they do now, into five classes.