Sometimes a book becomes wonderfully rejuvenated simply by having its cover and edges cleaned and a new pocket pasted in the back.
MENDING
It is very desirable that mending should not be done by inexperienced assistants, for an uninstructed beginner may do as much harm as good.
Torn Pages
Torn pages may be mended in any one of the following ways:
1. If the tear does not affect the printing, cut a strip of thin, tough bond paper one-half inch wide, a little longer than the tear to be covered, put through pasting-machine and cover the tear, trimming the overhang even with the page.
2. If the page is torn into the text, and the book is not valuable commercially, use ungummed onion skin about one-half inch wide and apply as above. If onion skin is not available a very thin, tough bond paper will do very well. Use a thin coating of paste, first putting a piece of white paper under the page to absorb extra paste.
3. If torn in the text and it is desirable to make as good a job as possible, use the following method:
Rub a very little paste on the torn edges, and place them together. Then take a rather large piece of ordinary tissue paper and rub it gently along the tear so that the tissue paper will adhere to the torn edges. Put under the press; when dry the superfluous tissue paper should be torn off, taking care to pull always toward the tear and from both sides at the same time. The delicate fibre of the tissue paper acts as an adhesive in such a way that it is almost impossible to discern how the mending was done.
4. If the margin of the leaf of a valuable book is torn in several places, take two sheets of paper the size of the leaf, cut out from the middle of each a piece a little larger than the letter-press of the book; trim the torn leaf so that it remains somewhat larger than the space cut out of the blank leaves; place it between these two leaves and paste down, thus forming new margins.