Transcriber’s Notes
Minor typographical errors have been corrected in the text that follows.Old-fashioned spelling has been left unchanged.
For a complete list of corrections, other changes, and notes, please see the end of this document.
The picture opposite the title-page is a reprint ofa page from the volume of plates, made in 1771, toillustrate Diderot’s Encyclopædia. This page isone of six, each 8×12 ins. in the original, illustratingthe article in the encyclopædia on binding.
The picture in the upper part of the plate representsa binder’s workshop. The person at A is beatinga book. The woman at B is sewing. The manat C is cutting or trimming the edges of a book.The man at D is working a press.
Of the figures below: 1 is a piece of marble onwhich books are beaten; 2 is a piece of marble ofdifferent shape for the same purpose; 3 is a beatinghammer; 4 is a sewing table or bench, on whichbooks are sewn; 5 and 6 are balls of thread for sewingbooks; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are parts of asewing bench; 13 and 14 are large and small paperfolders.
Notes on
Bookbinding for Libraries
By
John Cotton Dana
Librarian Free Public Library,
Newark, N. J.
Revised and Enlarged Edition
Library Bureau, Chicago
1910
COPYRIGHTED
1910
LIBRARY BUREAU
Naudé On Binding
“The fourth is, to retrench & cut off all thesuperfluous expences, which many prodigally andto no purpose bestow upon the binding and ornamentsof their Books, and to employ it in purchasingsuch as they want, that so they may not beobnoxious to that censure of Seneca, who handsomlyreproaches those, Quibus voluminum suorumfrontes maxime placent titulique; & this the rather,that the binding is nothing but an accident & formof appearing, without which (at least so splendidand sumptuous) Books become altogether as useful,commode & rare; it becoming the ignorant onely toesteem a Book for its cover; seeing it is not withBooks, as it is with men, who are onely known andrespected for their robes and their clothes, so thatit is a great deal better, and more necessary, forexample, to have