SUGGESTIONS FOR REDUCING COST
Following is a statement of plans for cutting down the cost of binding, a few of them being obviously makeshifts for the benefit of poor or very small libraries.
Books Bound Before Purchase
Under this head will be found (in Chapter 6) a full statement of reasons for buying books bound from the sheets.
Reprints Bound Before Purchase
The cheap reprints of popular novels which cost less than one-half as much as the original edition, although attractive in appearance, are very poorly bound and if bought in original covers must be rebound within a short time after they are first placed on the shelves. Some librarians find that it pays to send orders for books which can be obtained in cheap reprints directly to their binders, who buy the books and rebind them in the regular half-leather binding which the library uses for its rebound fiction and juvenile. He bills the books to the library at the cost of the volume plus the cost of binding, the total in any event being considerably less than one dollar. Not over ninety cents should be paid and eighty-five cents is the general price for such books. In this way the library gets a book in a good, strong library binding for less than the cost of the original edition in publisher's cover. Furthermore all labor involved in sending the book to the bindery and receiving it again—no inconsiderable item—is eliminated.
Akin to the foregoing plan is the practice which some libraries have of sending lists of replacements to dealers in second-hand books and having all books obtained in this way rebound at once before putting them into circulation. Moreover this arrangement eliminates the time and labor necessary to send a book to the bindery. Binderies in large cities can undertake to supply second-hand books, with advantages both to themselves and to the libraries employing them. The library is relieved from the necessity of searching for second-hand volumes, while the binder can well afford to do this service for a stated price per volume which will be reasonable from the library point of view, but which will allow the binder profit on all books which he can find at very cheap prices. When such a plan is adopted the binder should understand that the library wants neither the cheap books printed on wretched paper and having very small print, nor the very fine editions with colored illustrations.
Reinforcements