The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-12-30
Books Are Made Just
Like Autos Ernie
BY ERNIE PYLE

II INGSPORT, Tenn, Dec. 3O.-This story is about
N the biggest book factory in the world. It's down
here in the Tennessee hills. Doesn't that surprise
you? 1t did me.
This book factory is the Kingsport Press It
covers acres and acres. With true Southern hos
pitaty the president who is a Northerner) per-
sonally took from end of the place to the
ether. His name is E w Palmer, and it took almost
two hours
More than 600 people work there, ana the presi-
dent apparently knows every by his first name.
He stops at a machine and picks up part of book
and says Hello Steve" and the man working there
says Hello. Mr. Palmer"
This factory has easy capacity of 100000 book'l
a day They have turned out as many as $4,000 IN
"a hours. And they could do if they had to.
They average about million books a month.
They have three million books right now in the
shipping room.
Kingsport Press is not publishing house They
merely do the manufacturing for publishing houses.
or anybody else who both the desire and the
money to get book printed. They only IL years
old now. How they have grown!
NIFTY per cent of their work is text books Twenty
Il per cent is fiction. The other 30 per cent con-
ssts of such things encyclopedia sets. Bibles COL
lege ANIMALS, insurance company handbooks and so
They print no magazines, or pamphlets.
Mr.. Palmer is very proud of the fancy leather
tooWork they do on covers. He picked up a loose
leather cover to show me. 1t was the Arbutus' the
year book of Indiana University. used to be editor
Of it, or the daily school paper, or something out
there The 1886 ArbutuS. sorry to say, is going
to look much better than the in 1923.
The big presses run of sheets with 16 book pages
on each side. Another machine folds these up to
bookp size. These called sections They pile
the sections in machine. This machine has arms
which reaches out and grabs various sections and
drops them on endless belt one section on top Of
another as they move along until at the end there's
whole book piled up.
THEN it goes to the sewing machines where the
Il back is sewed They have so of them woman
tends each one but they're pretty automatic.
Now the books start assembly line, just
like auto. They go through crusher, which
smashes them down thin and then cutter, which
slices off the three edges, neat and even. Then
paster, which puts glue and strip of cloth along
the back.
And then the book and its cover finally come to-
gether in the assembly line just as chassis and a
body finally meet at the right point in auto fac
tory.
Various machines put the cover and fasten
it. Then the books squeezed in press and left
clamped down for several hours. for the glue TO dry,
and they won't spread out Then they go TO the
packing room, ready to be shipped
Also, found out how they cut those sloping index
holes in the edges of dictionaries It's done by hand
the letter starts. and puts little paper tab in
there.
Then fellow with punch like a leather punch,
takes the book shoyes the front side till the edge
is slopng then sticks in his punch and clamps down.
cutting the pages. Then girl with the letters on
little tabs simply pastes them in at the right place