Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Librarians by Douglas Cockerell with Drawings
by Noel Rooke and other Illustrations
New York
1902
Book binding Chapter XXII
Part 2
Bindings that have broken joints may be re-backed.
Any of the leather of the back that remains should
be carefully removed and preserved. It is
impossible to get some leathers off tight backs
without destroying them, but with care and by the
use of a thin folder, many backs can be saved. The
leather on the boards is cut a little back from the
joint with a slanting cut that will leave a thin edge,
and is then lifted up with a folder. New leather, of
the same colour is pasted on the back, and tucked
in under the old leather on the board. The leather
pasted on to the new leather and bound tightly with tape to make sure that it sticks. When the
leather at the corners of the board needs repairing, the corner is glued and tapped with a
hammer to make it hard and square, and when it is dry a little piece of new leather is slipped
under the old and the corner covered.
When the sewing cords or thread of a book have perished it should be rebound) but if there
are any remains of the original binding they should be preserved and utilized. If the old boards
have quite perished) new boards of the same nature and thickness should be got out and the old
cover pasted over them. Such places as the old leather will not cover) must first be covered with
new of the same colour. Generally speaking) it is desirable that the characteristics of an old book
should be preserved) and that the new work should be as little in evidence as possible. It is far
more pleasant to see an old book in a patched contemporary binding) than smug and tidy in the
most immaculate modern cover. Part of the interest of any old book is its individual history)
which can be gathered from the binding, book-plates, marginal notes, names of former owners,
&c., and anything that tends to obliterate these signs is to be deplored.
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