Much of the information, many reports of experiences and many suggestions will be found in the lists of leathers, etc., and definitions of terms used in binding. It seemed unwise to repeat them as part of a connected text.
In considering the subject of economical binding and rebinding for libraries, we find that we are entirely without standards. We have no figures for comparisons. Librarians have, save in a very few cases, made no study of the comparative value of bindings, either of original cloth or of the rebindings they have had put on their books. If a few librarians would note the number of times books can be issued without rebinding after they are received in the original publisher’s cloth, and how many issues they will stand after they have been once, or twice, rebound, they would, in a few months, have data from which they could draw helpful conclusions in regard to the comparative value of bindings and rebindings.
The test of a binding, whether publisher’s original, special from the sheets, or a rebinding, lies, for ordinary lending books, in the ratio of its cost to the number of times the book it covers is lent for home use before being discarded. This ratio has rarely been systematically noted.
To the inquiry, does the method of rebinding which my library now employs give the best possible return for the money spent? most librarians must reply that they do not know.
Reference and college libraries are often also much in the dark. The continued quite general use for permanent bindings of a leather which tests have shown will not last over 25 or 30 years at the most is an evidence of this.
In England, as is well known, a good many years of careful observation and comparison of experiments have led a large number of librarians to the conclusion which some American librarians also accept, that it is the part of sound economy to have books carefully bound directly from publishers’ sheets, even though the prices of such bindings seem at first unduly high.
I sent a letter of inquiry to a large number of libraries asking for detailed information about the wear of books in publishers’ bindings and in the one or more rebindings which were placed on them. Replies were received from 18 libraries, giving brief life histories of 74 books. Definite conclusions cannot be drawn from these reports, as librarians differ much in their ways of treating books. Some rebind them as soon as they show serious signs of wear; others keep them in circulation long after they have begun to go to pieces. But the figures indicate that it would pay these libraries, as it probably would all others, to get most of the books which are to be subjected to much handling strongly bound direct from publishers’ sheets.
The reports show that 74 books cost, including first price, rebinding and labor of handling for rebinding, an average of $1.38 each; that they were lent an average of 79 times in the two states, new and rebound; and that they were out of use an average of five weeks while being rebound. A book of a nature similar to those reported on, well-bound from publishers’ sheets costs about $1.50; can be lent from 100 to 150 times and loses no time in being rebound.
Of these books 52 were rebound a second time at an average cost, including labor in preparation, of 40 cents; were out of use an average of five weeks; and were lent an average of 43 times each in this second binding. The complete history of the books a second time rebound is as follows: