Repairing a Damaged Hardback Book

Books are more and more viewed as superfluous in our age of electronics. This is unfortunate. The first reason is that books might represent the only means of sharing some information. These might include old books, diaries, letters, legal documents. Second, books are more readily available. You can pull out a book and read a page or two in a spare moment without batteries or booting.

Books have changed the course of history. They are responsible for the good like the period of enlightenment or freeing the American slaves, and for evil, like World War 2 and communist oppression. A book is a distillation of information; it is like spending hundreds of hours gleaning from an expert. Therefore, classic books deserve to be kept in a place of honor.

However, books are made of material that is finite and thus books deteriorate. For this reason, treasured books will need to be repaired or restored from time to time. To discuss this, we need to agree on the vocabulary of book parts. Since we can’t post pictures, get a volume in hand to visualize each part.

All the pages of a book together is called the book block or the text block. It consists of pages, leaves, sheets, and signatures. One piece of paper folded in half is called a leaf. This makes four pages, front and back. A sheet is each half. Several leafs combined in one unit is a signature.

Most books are bound as multiple signatures, each one sewed together and then compiled. These are glued to the headband, a piece of material sticking out of the top and bottom of the spine. The headband holds the signatures together, making the block.

The top of a book is the head, the bottom is the tail. The sheet of paper glued to both the cover and the block has two names. It is called the pastedown on the cover side. On the cover it is called the pastedown.

The most common book damage is in one of three ways. The first is the pastedown tearing away from the cover. This makes the cover flop. This is repaired by inserting polyvinyl acetate adhesive (PVA) into the damaged area with a long object like a knitting needle. Then the book must be pressed or clamped in place until the glue is dry.

A second damage is one or more loose signatures. Again, if the signature stitching itself is secure, it can be glued into place with the same adhesive and pressed until it is dry.

The third common type of repair is called tipping-in. It is needed when a single sheet comes loose or needs to be added. This is repaired by applying the same adhesive to the end of the sheet and pressing it until dry, without getting glue on the wrong places when it is inserted.

Of course, glue applied excessively or to the wrong places may cause irreparable damage. If the wear to the volume is serious or if you want to be sure it is repaired professionally, it would be good to entrust your precious book to an expert.

If you need an expert at both hardback book binding and custom book binding, consider Tightly Bound Books where you'll receive Book Repair With Personal Care. Click the links to visit their website and see a gallery of completed work.