Industry
Part of Bookbinding Mistakes: Structural Failures to Watch For
Bookbinding faults: name the part, then write the condition note
A table of binding parts and the faults named for them, how old repairs read, and a four line condition note you can write before deciding what to do.
What to take away
- No binders were interviewed. What follows is the descriptive vocabulary that collections use, which is more useful than remembered advice.
- Naming a fault precisely is most of diagnosing it.
- Old bindings were repaired with whatever was to hand, and the evidence is still visible in them.
- Write your condition notes before you decide what to do.
Why vocabulary beats advice
Ask five people why a book will not open flat and you will get five answers. Ask what the joint, the shoulder, the swell and the squares are doing, and the fault usually names itself.
Collections have had to standardize this language because they describe thousands of objects. Borrowing it costs nothing and makes your own notes comparable from one book to the next.
The parts, and what each fault is called
| Part | Fault | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Joint | Cracked, strained | Covering material failed at the hinge |
| Shoulder | Collapsed | Backing lost, spine flattening |
| Spine | Rounded, flat, concave | Shape changed after sewing |
| Swell | Excessive, insufficient | Thread bulk against section count |
| Squares | Uneven, absent | Board cut or positioned badly |
| Boards | Bowed, cupped, warped | Grain or moisture |
Once these are named, a note reads as a diagnosis rather than a complaint, and two notes written months apart can be compared.
Parts and their fault names
Part
- Joint
- Cracked, strained
- Shoulder
- Collapsed
- Spine
- Rounded, flat, concave
- Swell
- Excessive, insufficient
- Squares
- Uneven, absent
- Boards
- Bowed, cupped, warped
Fault
- Joint
- Covering failed at hinge
- Shoulder
- Backing lost, spine flattening
- Spine
- Shape changed after sewing
- Swell
- Thread bulk vs sections
- Squares
- Board cut or placed badly
- Boards
- Grain or moisture
What it means
- Joint
- Shoulder
- Spine
- Swell
- Squares
- Boards
Read the repairs in old books
Historic bindings carry the record of earlier decisions, and some of those decisions look like mistakes now. The University of North Carolina's guide to medieval manuscript collections at Wilson Library records one such case directly: on one incunable, the external binding is composed of vellum leaves taken from an earlier liturgical music manuscript.
Reusing a manuscript as covering material was economical and normal. It also destroyed the manuscript. That is a useful thing to hold in mind when you are about to cut up something to solve a binding problem.
Rarity is a moving target
The reason to record rather than repair is that judgments change. Vassar College Library's account of incunabula observes that a significant number of the first printed books survive and are available to study, aided by scholarly efforts to compile comprehensive lists, with most residing in European institutions and a portion in American libraries.
Survival, in other words, was not planned. Things persisted largely because someone left them alone, or because they were boxed and forgotten. Restraint is a technique, not an absence of one.
A condition note that is worth writing
- Date, title, and what the object is.
- Structure and materials, as far as you can tell.
- Faults, using the vocabulary above, one line each.
- What you did, and what you deliberately left alone.
Do this for your own work as well as for anything you repair. The failure catalog behind these terms is in what binding failures look like later, and the crafts they sit across are mapped in book arts in 2027.
Writing a condition note
- Date, title, and what the object is
- Structure and materials, as far as you can tell
- Faults, using the vocabulary, one line each
- What you did, and what you left alone
