What we want to do now is to put a back to our volume. We want something that will look well, and be strong, and nothing that I have tried has been equal to “window-blind holland.” A dark green I prefer, but colour is a matter of taste. This material will not stretch out of place in pasting, as bookbinders’ cloth is apt to do. Fig. 4 shows how the back piece is cut. The middle part b has a strip of stiff paper pasted on it, which is not exactly the width of the back of the volume, but just a shade wider, that when pasted in place, it may have the proper curve outwards. The flap c is to be turned and pasted down on this strip of paper, but the flaps d and d will be turned and pasted down inside the covers, after the back has been pasted in its place on the volume; and when that has been done, the volume should be kept under pressure till the paste is dry.
Fig. 3.,
Fig. 4.
We must, of course, cover the sides of our volume; bookbinders’ cloth or marbled paper, both of which are very inexpensive, are what I commonly use. After that, we can line the insides of the covers by pasting down on them a leaf of the end paper. And only one more thing now remains to be done, that is to letter a label neatly, and to paste it on the back.
Scrap Book and Index.—Keep two scrap-books—one for cuttings and the other for notes. The scrap-book might be made of brown paper. Take an ordinary quarto exercise-book, with about 100 pages in it, and set apart the first fifteen pages for forming the index, for a scrap-book or a note-book without an index is as absurd as a public library without a catalogue. On the first page of your scrap-book write, in clear style, your name and address. Next, put the date on which you commenced to insert cuttings in the book. And then you might add an appropriate motto. How would this title-page do?
Fig. A.