Music should be sewed regularly or all along and the inside and outside sheets of all signatures should be guarded with jaconet. This guarding of the inner sheets makes the binding stronger, as the inner pages of a section always tend to work loose if much handled. The side and top squares should be about ⅛ of an inch; but the bottom square about ⅜ inch. This large square at the bottom raises the book on the instrument to allow the easy turning of leaves, as the pages frequently catch when the squares are the usual size all around. Newark finds half pig with Keratol sides very durable.
Large maps, drawings, etc., may be mounted on linen, jaconet, nainsook, ordinary bleached, or unbleached muslin. The material used should be five or six inches larger all around than the map to be mounted for convenience in stretching and working. Tack the cloth on a clean board, table or floor. Put the tacks very close together and tack the selvage edge first. The surface may be covered with waste paper before stretching the cloth on it. Apply a thin coat of thin paste all over. When dry, paste the map and allow it to stand about ten minutes to give it time to stretch. Lay the map on the muslin and rub it down under a stout piece of paper. Thorough rubbing down is absolutely necessary to make every part adhere. Proceed from the center outward, carefully rubbing out creases and bubbles. Dry thoroughly before taking up.
One person alone cannot mount a very large sheet.
Very small maps in books which have become somewhat worn and creased can be mounted on Japanese mending tissue. This paper is quite tough and thin, and wears well.
[CHAPTER VI]
Lettering and Numbering the Backs of Books
Several methods of lettering the backs of books are in use in libraries. The best is gilding. If this is well done with genuine gold it will remain bright for many years, and will stand hard wear better than any other style of marking. On leather this method should always be followed. Only the best work in gilding is worth the money it costs, and there is no substitute for gold that deserves mention.
Gilding on cloth by hand is rather difficult. It does not show well on light-colored cloth, or on some dark colors. On some cloths, also, gold titles become quite invisible in certain lights, probably because of a certain combination in them of color and texture. Dark green is often quite objectionable on this account, and the same is true of some shades of red, in cloths of a certain texture. This difficulty should be noted, and only those cloths used on books which are to have gold titles on which the letters show well, at whatever angle the light may strike them.