Binders that require the punching of holes through the backs of magazines should be looked on with suspicion; though in spite of its expense the binder of this type, with flexible metal strips in place of strings and with polished sides containing actual covers of the magazine within, has had much use. It wears well, is put on about as quickly as any, exposes the date and name along the magazine’s back, and looks more attractive than any other binder when perched in rows in vertical racks.
All other binders may be divided into three kinds: The Clip, the Bar and the String.
The Clip is based on the Ballard clip idea. The Johnston is a good example. A spring in the back grips the sides of the magazine and holds the binder on. It tends to make a magazine less easy to hold open. It pleases a good many.
The Bar has for its main feature one or more strips of steel, which run down the back of the magazine and are fastened to the binder by a hinge at one end and a hook at the other. Of all of this kind the best for the money is, perhaps, the New Haven.
The String uses a string or elastic band to hold the magazine. In the one called the Springfield, first used in Los Angeles in 1890, the string passes through the magazine, between sections, and through three holes in the back of the binder in a binder’s stitch.
The Newark Library has tried many kinds of material for binders. Thin book cloth soon wears out. Heavy and strong cloth soon gets soiled. Full leather is very expensive, unless the leather used is light and poor, and then it soon wears out. Good leather backs outwear sides of any cloth. A Cleveland binder made for “Harper’s Weekly,” with heavy cowskin back and keratol sides, was in constant use for 30 months and looked well nearly all that time. It costs 70 cents. The few binders now used in the Newark reading room are made in this style.
Covers of strong paper pasted to the outsides of single copies of magazines to protect them during reading-room use or for lending, the Newark Library has not found satisfactory. We reinforce the covers of single magazines for this purpose as follows and find the method quite satisfactory:
If the original cover is loose, take it off and paste on again carefully. Line the cover with thin, white bond paper, pasted on all over and lapping a half-inch onto the magazine itself. Press for ten minutes in a copying press. Paste a strip of thin dark-colored book cloth down the back on the outside. Put under moderate pressure until dry. Write the name and date of the magazine on the strip of cloth with white ink.
Sew large magazines like the “Ladies’ Home Journal” into covers of stout paper. A strip of paper an inch and a half wide placed in the center of the section through which the magazine is sewed keeps the sewing from tearing the paper.
Single copies of magazines can be bound for lending, at about 15 cents each, in this manner: Take off covers; trim; remove table of contents if it faces the cover; paste strip of strong cotton cloth down the back, and extending about an inch over the sides; staple this on with at least three staples in the same line with the staples which hold the magazine together, or sew with stout thread through five holes; cut covers as for an ordinary binding; paste them to the strip; cover all over with art vellum; line covers with paper (this lining can be put on all over as the first step in the process, and pasted to the covers after they are on, thus forming the end paper); paste the front cover of the magazine on the front in such a way that the date line down the back comes on the back of the new cover. This is neat, convenient and quite durable.