Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-14

Washington, June 11.-Bookbinding
standards are changing. The old be-
lief that leather is the only worthy
and durable binding for a good book
is now almost discounted. Libraries
no longer add regularly to their rows
Of old volumes bound in aristocratic
red and brown leather. Buckram, util-
~itarian and unromantic, is supplanting
morocco and calf.
The Library of Congress, which
binds 10000 volumes a year for its
own shelves, says that this is a nat
ural development of our large scale of
civilization. When leather was prepared
by hand by European craftsmen it
was undoubtedly a material of great
lasting qualities. But now factory
methods prevail, and leather is eff
GENTLY tanned with acids. This process
does not affect shoes, purses. and other
articles that are expected to last only
a few years at most. But when it
comes to a valuable book that counts
its lifetime by decades and centuries.
an Acclaimed leather is in for an
endurance test that it cannot be expect
ed % stand.
This development has contributed to
the rise of buckram. This material
is said to outlast the modern acid
tanned leather. and it is even contended
that it will wear longer than the old
hand prepared. acid free feathers. 1t
will be some time before this point is
settled. because buckram has been in
use only about % years. and a fine
DpndA nf o1I 1noL1r bna lo1o Ia
to stand more than two centuries of
wear.
For a few years the Library of Con-
gress has been able to get acid free
leather for some of its valuable books.
Strangely enough. it is not the latest
magic of science which is making this
possible. The leather is obtained from
savages of Africa. who prepare the
skins Of the Niger goat by some crude
native process.
This leather is in demand for old
and heavy books. Buckram, however,
is being generally used to bind even
important collections of documents in
the Library of Congress. A trip
through the stacks in the manuscript
division shows long series of volumes
encased in olive green. brown. or gray
buckram covers. with panels of leather
" LIZ Ill Solol 1tlDE II I
and forming a dark background for the
gold lettering of the titles.
Library Binds Books
This library, with the country's larg-
est collection of books to keep in or
Ger, attempts to solve most of its own
bookbinding and repairing questions.
Old volumes cracking with age and
new p~aper-covered additions to the
chaIrac oro hr,1vI IN tho hir I;krar,-
building by a force of workers de-
tailed from the government printing
office.
Few visitors know IF the existence
of the library's bookbindery. hidden
away in the basement in long rooms
opening off a red and white corridor.
Here 20 people work at an endless
job of bookbinding. There are nearly
100000 books in the governments
library and about 10000 new books
and pamphlets come in every year.
Many of the new works have only film
sy paper covers. and all of these must
be either put in envelopes or service
ably bound. Then there are $50 vol
umes of newspapers to be collected
in huge tones every month. and be-
sides all this there is a constant stream
of worn books TO be repaired.
The hookbinderv merely tries to
keep from being swamped. 1t cannot
accomplish nearly all of the work it
would like to do if appropriations per-
mitted. Some year the superintendent
of the division hopes to have a suffi-
GENTLY large appropriation so that he
can conduct a grand o~verhauling and
see that every book on the shelves
is in first-cla condition. But that is
only one Of the castles in the air which
government chiefs and supervisors like
to build. There is scant prospect of
any extra-sized appropriations from
for patching up books that are
unobtrusively d~isintegrating on library
shelves.
The binders in the library shop do
thorough work. Cover boards are laced
into each vlume making the binding a
part of the book and not merely a
glued-on covering. The bindings in