- About Bookbinding -

It is amazing how anyone can expect long employment as a librarian, who takes no interest in the condition of the books under his charge. The way to build up a library, and to establish the reputation of a librarian at the same time, is to devote every energy and intelligence to the great work in hand. Convince the library directors, by inces­sant care of the condition of the books, that you are not only a fit, but an indispensable custodian of them. Let them see your methods of preserving and restoring, and they will be induced to give you every facility of which you stand in need. Show them how the cost of binding or re-buying many books can be saved by timely repair within the library, and then ask for another assistant to be always employed on such work at very moderate cost. Library directors and trustees are commonly intensely practical men, and quick to see into the heart of good management. They do not want a librarian who has a great reputation as a linguist, or an educator, or a book-worm, but one who knows and cares about making their funds go as far as pos­sible, and can show them how he has saved by restoring old books, enough money to pay for a great many new ones.

Nothing is more common in public lending libraries than to find torn leaves in some of the books. If the leaf is simply broken, without being absolutely detached, or if part is torn off, and remains on hand, the volume may be restored by a very simple process. Keep always at hand in some drawer, a few sheets of thin "onion-skin" paper, or the transparent adhesive paper supplied by the Library Bureau. Paste this on either side of the torn leaf, seeing that it laps over all the points of juncture where the tear occurred, and that the fitting of the text or reading matter is complete and perfect. The paper being transparent, there will be no difficulty in reading the torn page through it.

This little piece of restoration should always be effected immediately on discovery, both that the torn piece or frag­ment may be saved, and that the volume may be restored to use.

In case of absolute loss of a leaf or a part of a page, there are only three remedies known to me.

1. The book may be condemned as imperfect, and a new copy purchased.

2. The missing part may be restored from a perfect copy of the same work, by copying the portions of the text want­ing, and inserting them where they belong. This can be done with a pen, and the written deficiency neatly insert­ed, in facsimile of the type, or in ordinary script hand; or else the part wanting may be photographed or heliotyped by the best modern process from a duplicate copy of the book.

3. If the book is of very recent issue, the publishers may furnish a signature or sheet which would make good the deficiency, from the "imperfections" left in the bindery, after making up the edition of the work.

In most cases, the last named means of replacement will not be found available. The first, or buying a fresh copy, may entail a greater expense than the library authorities would deem proper at the time, and it might be preferred to continue the book in use, with a slight imperfection. The second method, more or less troublesome according to circumstances, or the extent of the matter to be copied is sometimes the most economical. Of course, it is subject to the drawback of not being, when done, a bona fide or genuine copy of the book as published. This dimin­ishes the commercial value of even the rarest book, al­though so fully restored as to text that the reader has it all before him, so that it supplies every requisite of a perfect copy for the purposes of a public library, or a private owner who is not a connoisseur in books. When the corners of a book are found to be broken (as often happens by falling to the floor or severe handling) the book may be restored by a treatment which will give it new leather corners. With paste or glue well rubbed in, apply thick brown paper on the corners, which, when dry, will be as hard as desired, and ready to receive the leather. Then the sides may be covered with marbled paper or cloth, and the volume is restored.

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