Vent: The library's rebinding job made me question my whole craft

Went to the downtown branch last Saturday to pick up a repair request, and I saw they had a whole shelf of old novels sent out to a commercial bindery. One of them had the spine hinges cracked right at the joints, glue pooling on the endpapers, and the cover boards were cut about 3mm short on the fore edge. For what they probably paid per volume, I could have done a better job with my $40 bone folder and a pot of PVA in my garage. How do these outfits stay in business? Has anyone else had to fix shoddy work from a binder they didn't choose?

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kelly_nelson9525d ago

Commercial shops are built for speed and volume, not for one old book that needs real attention. That 3mm short fore edge and pooled glue is just what happens when someone is cranking through a hundred books a day on a schedule. You and me working out of a garage can take the time to match the boards, size the spine, and let the PVA dry right, because we actually care how it turns out. A bindery that cheap usually wins library contracts on price alone, not on quality, and the libraries know it going in. Maybe the real issue is that the people writing those contracts have never rebound a book themselves.

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