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Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a Book from a number of separate sheets of Paper or other material. HISTORICAL The craft of bookbinding may have originated around the 1st Century A.D. Romans of the time created a form of simple book called a Codex by folding sheets of Vellum or Parchment in half and sewing them through the fold. Codices were a significant improvement over Papyrus or vellum Scroll s, in that they were easier to handle, allowed writing on both sides of the leaves, and could be searched through more quickly. Later books were bound between hard covers, with pages made from Paper , or parchment, but were still created by stitching folded sheets at the seam. Since early books were exclusively handwritten on handmade materials, sizes and styles varied considerably, and each book was a unique creation or a copy of it. With the arrival (from the East) of rag paper manufacturing through Europe in the late Middle Ages and the use of the Printing Press beginning in the mid- 15th Century , bookbinding began to standardize somewhat. But page sizes still varied considerably. Some books have even been bound in Human Skin . See Anthropodermic Bibliopegy . MODERN COMMERCIAL BINDING There are various commercial techniques in use today. Commercially-produced books today tend to be of one of four categories:
The rise of Desktop Publishing has brought a fifth form into the commercial market, as well.
Magazine s are considered more ephemeral than books, and less durable means of binding them are usual. In general, the cover papers of magazines will be the same as the inner pages (self-cover {Link without Title} ) or only slightly heavier (soft cover).
MODERN HAND BINDING When talking about bookbinding as a craft, hardbound books are most common. Any sewn book can be pulled apart and rebound into a hardbound book by adding a case. Cases are often cardboard and sometimes wooden squares adhered to paper or leather and formed around the text block. There are different methods of sewing, such as stab sewing. A traditional method which uses sashes allows the book to open flat and not break the spine. Books can be bound in many different materials. Some of the more common materials for covers are ). A common way to bind a book is as a halfbound book, which means that the spine and the corners of the cover are covered with leather or cloth, while the rest is covered with paper (normally marbled or otherwise decorated). When only the spine is covered with cloth or leather and the rest of the cover is covered in paper, the book is called quarterbound. RESTORATION HAND BINDING In Restoration hand binding, the pages and book covers are often times hundreds of years old and the handling of these pages has to be undertaken with great care, and a delicate hand. The binding archival process can extend a book’s life for many decades, and is necessary in order to preserve books that sometimes are limited to a small handful of remaining copies worldwide. It is vitally urgent that such books are cared for in the most loving manner befitting the books’ rarity and subject matter. The first step in saving and preserving a book is found in its deconstruction. The pages need to be separated from the covers and the stitching removed. This is done as delicately as possible, all restoration is done at this point, be it the removal of Foxing , ink stains, page tears etc. Various techniques are employed to repair the various types of page damage that might have occurred during the life of the book. Master Bookbinders are qualified to undertake restoration and traditional hand binding, and use great care to make sure this process does not further damage the pages, then they are added to the various groups of page signatures, which when collated are beaten flat and pressed. The preparation of the "foundations" of the book could mean the difference between a beautiful work of art and a useless stack of paper and leather. The sections are then hand sewn in the style of its period into book form, and great care is taken to use the proper stitching of the period in which the book was made. The next step is the creation of the book cover; hand-tanned leather, which is dyed using vegetable dyes, hand marbled papers can be used, Finally the cover is hand-tooled in gold leaf. The design of the book cover involves the hand-tooling, where an extremely thin layer of gold is applied to the cover. Such designs can be lettering, symbols, or magical sigils, depending on the nature of any particular project. TERMS AND TECHNIQUES
SPINE CONVENTIONS In left-to-right read languages (like English), books are bound on the left side of the cover; looking from on top, the pages increase counter-clockwise. In right-to-left languages, books are bound on the right. In both cases, this is so the end of a page coincides with where you flip. (As a side note, some English-language books are bound on the right side of the cover. By far the most common examples are English-language translations of Japanese comic books. Since the art is laid out to be read right-to-left, this allows the art to be published "unflipped".) In Japanese, literary books are written top-to-bottom, right-to-left, and thus are bound on the right, while text books are written left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and thus are bound on the left. The title of a book is traditionally written on the spine. In Chinese and similar languages, this is naturally written top-to-bottom (as the characters don't change orientation, and the language is generally written top-to-bottom), but in left-to-right (and right-to-left) languages, the spine is usually too narrow for the title to fit in its natural orientation, and conventions differ. In the United States and England, titles are written top-to-bottom; when placed face-up, the title is correctly oriented left-to-right. This also underlies why multiple volume works are often shelved right-to-left: they're arranged "as if a stack". In many European countries, the general convention is to write titles bottom-to-top on the spine. (But spines of books in Dutch are almost always written top-to-bottom; in Spain every publisher has his own preference.) This is unusual, in that no writing system goes bottom-to-top, and requires that the book be placed face-down for the title on the spine to be right-side up. However, it results in multivolume works being shelved (correctly) left-to-right. EXTERNAL LINKS
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