VARIOUS ASPECTSOF PERFECT BINDING PROCESS FOR OPTIMUM UTILIZATION OF ADHESIVES

Each generation, going back to the early middle ages, has had master craftsmen capable of producing handsomely decorated bindings, whether gilded, painted or be jeweled. These fine bindings have adorned the shelves of wealthy collectors and subsequently found their way into exhibition cases or published catalogues. They are self-evidently beautiful objects, works of art in their own right, and looking after them needs little justification. Such bindings constitute only a tiny proportion of the total output of binders over the centuries, and we are increasingly coming to recognize that this purely visual approach to the subject is too narrow. Before the early nineteenth century, when mechanization began to be introduced, every book binding was an individually handmade object, whose creation reflected a series of choices which became part of a book's history. Bookbinders offered their customers a range of options on quality, both structurally and aesthetically. A book might be quickly stitched in paper or vellum wrappers, or it might be fully bound in decorated leather-covered boards. The covers might be decorated simply with a few blind lines, or extravagantly with lots of gold tooling. The choices exercised in each case may tell us something about the ways in which individual books were owned, circulated and regarded.