For the sides of books, bound with pigskin or morocco backs, which are to be much handled the Newark Library has found nothing as good as keratol, elsewhere described. For books which are not to be much handled, morocco cloth is excellent. On books which are bound with an eye to their beauty,—curios, rarities, books to be exhibited, etc.—Newark uses three-fourths morocco with sides of paper or of cloth of appropriate color.
The joint committee on printing of the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., made an investigation in 1907 of several binding materials. This investigation was made with special reference to the binding of the publications of the United States government. It included the subjects of endurance, wear, tensile strength, tendency to absorb moisture, readiness with which attacked by insects. Incidentally other qualities were considered.
An outcome of this investigation was the publication by the Bureau of Standards, Washington, of specifications for bookcloth for binding depository sets of public documents. The specifications state that the cloth shall be from first quality staple cotton, uniformly woven and of the grade known as firsts. The surface shall be smooth and hard and show no tendency to stick when folded upon itself. Further specifications cover the strength of the material, its tendency to absorb moisture, its resistance to mold and insects and other characteristics.
These specifications may be used by all librarians in selecting cloth for ordinary library binding. The Bureau of Standards will make tests according to the specifications for any library, charging a fee for the work. The cloth which conforms to these specifications is a smooth cotton fabric similar to that used by the best law book publishers in this country, and to the duck mentioned above. It is much heavier than ordinary publisher’s book cloth.
[CHAPTER V]
Rebinding for Libraries
Libraries differ as to bindings in their needs and in their possibilities. Books differ even more. No library can or should exactly follow any one style in its rebinding work. I add, however, the following directions for ordinary, much-used 12mo volumes, in the hope that they may be found suggestive. They should be read in the light of all the rest of this book, and not taken as final authority at any point.
Pull apart with great care. Remove all threads and old paste and glue. Smooth out the backs by beating. Guard the outer and inner leaves of all signatures that are broken or weak with paper or jaconet.
Loose pictures, if they are to be kept, put in with guards. Frequently in rebinding the illustrations may be dropped with no loss either to the reader’s pleasure or the cause of art.