
A few years back (OK – more than a decade ago), we shared designer Wesley Tanner’s instructions for opening a new book with a sewn binding:
“The first thing I do when I get a book like this with sewn signatures is to ‘open it up.’ I remove the jacket off and lay the book on a table (admiring the lovely silver stamping). Looking at the top or bottom edge at the spine, I find the middle of the first section, and open the book with both hands gripping the outside edges of the pages, and gently ‘break’ the glue that has seeped through the sewing holes. I only open the book far enough to do this, about 80 percent of the way down to flat, as I don’t want to wreck the spine. After I’ve done two or three signatures I start from the back, as this will counter the natural twist the book’s spine will get after reading the book straight through. After that, the book should lay open on the table when I go get another cup of coffee.”
The method in the graphic at top isn’t so different. It, too, requires a table and just a bit of care.
Neither method calls for more than a few minutes’ work – and it will allow you (and your heirs) to enjoy a well-made book (like those from Lost Art Press!) for decades – even centuries – to come.
– Fitz
A dozen nicely bound books from LAP and I just now learn this. Oh well, better late than never!
I feel the same way. It seems my education missed that bit.
When I was in junior high and high school, in the ’60’s, this process was always de rigueur when any new text books were issued at the beginning of a new school year. We would sit in class and go through this on day one. Actually works pretty good on paperbacks, as well.
I remember my mother telling me that she was taught to do this while a child in school (1920s) while she taught me how when I was little.
I do this for all new books, even paperback books with glued ”perfect”(🤮) bindings.
It was taught to me by a couple separate english teachers in high school.
A few things though.
You should open both the front and back covers.
Then, you should skip the inside facing cover paper (which is usually a thicker paper), and only open pages after the bookblock has started.
On paperback books, the cover is sometimes glued to the bookblock with a wider strip of glue, and on sewn hardcovers, the bookblock is usually glued to the usually slightly thicker internal endpapers, and trying to open the book at these locations usually results in an annoying creasing in all subsequent openings off the book pages.
We need a LAP video for this. Sarcasm will be welcomed.
Already been done.
https://youtu.be/ucxcHZeANmA?si=6aHDR6PIWtg1VZEK
If my LAP books are to last for centuries, are they made with acid free paper?
Yes, they are.
Do your books come shrink-wrappedfrom the printer, or do you do that before shipping?
They are wrapped at the plant. It’s necessary to protect them from humidity swings during transport and storage.
We have the warehouse carefully controlled for humidity on every floor. But abrupt swings in transport to us or from us result in bent covers and warped pages.
The plastic — as much as I dislike it — evens out moisture transfer and saves us thousands of dollars a year in returns.
Interesting. Thanks.
Always have been.
This would make an excellent bookmark text to be included in every book package sent out.
Critical information and we always need a bookmark.
Add inkings of an owner’s line, skull, skeleton, hour-glass, Fancy Lad, and cat or two, and it would make an excellent Ex Libris sticker, which should be required by law inside EVERY book cover. I weep to think how MANY books I’ve lost to the winds over eight decades, simply for the lack of Ex Libris stickers.
I learned how to do this in elementary school in the early 1960s. Something I’ll always remember to do to a hardbound book.