How do I prepare a new book?

October 16, 2009 10:10 PM

I was once shown how to prepare a brand new book before reading it– it had something to do with opening the book at various places and smoothing down the pages. Supposedly it would make the binding last longer. Does this actually work, and if so, could anyone describe the process clearly? Any other advice on good book care and repair for this new librarian would be greatly appreciated.
posted by carterk to media & arts (11 comments total)

The way I heard it, you stand the book up on its spine, then fold down the front and back cover to the table and crease it, then some more pages on each side same thing, etc.

I don't know if it really saves the binding - it seems like you're accelerating the wearing in process on purpose. What it does do is somewhat prevent the annoying tendency for the book to close itself whenever you take your hand off of it for a second. Also it prevents the pages from getting creased "backwards" across the center, like a loose-leaf binder wraps around the rings when you shut it.
posted by ctmf at 10:47 PM on October 16

I guess with a paperback, it would spread the 180-degree total bend required to lay the book flat over the whole binding, instead of having one ugly crease in the center of the binding which does make pages start to fall out faster.
posted by ctmf at 10:50 PM on October 16

It depends on the kind of book. On a trade paperback you're just making it fail sooner. On a book with a sewn binding, I gather it does make the book last longer, because if flexes the back evenly.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:51 PM on October 16

seconding ctmf. it is good for paperbacks as well as for sewn bindings.
posted by JimN2TAW at 10:56 PM on October 16

Random how-to:

How to Break In A New Book

To some extent, I think modern production methods and glues have reduced the need for this quite a bit, at least for paperbacks (the writer of the howto refers to a "german bond"). I only do this if the book "feels" like it needs it (thick, stiff, expensive), and I cannot remember when a book last fell apart for me.
posted by effbot at 1:39 AM on October 17 [2 favorites has favorites]

I've been learning book conservation at my job at a major university library over the last year and a half, and what you describe does'nt do anything to preserve the binding. In fact, what you are doing is accelerating the wear, albeit so in a more even fashion. This does make the book more "readable," in that it will lay open more easily and slightly prevent the warping of the binding that can occur if you leave a book open to a certain page for too long or stressing the spine by crushing the book while it is open (by photocopying, for example).

I would recommend just wearing in the book as you read it but if you really enjoy the feeling of doing this, the pleasure of the act may outweigh the (relatively minor) damage you are doing to the book. So if you do decide to break in the book, aware of a few things:

Be careful if you are doing this with cheap paperbacks, books printed in the 60s-80s, or books printed in India or China. They tend to use cheaper (or older) adhesive that can be brittle. Purposefully bending the spine on one of these books can cause it to crack, leading to pages falling out or the entire text block splitting in two.

Watch out that you aren't loosening the endpapers as you do this. You can tell if this is happening by grabbing the text block (the pages) while one hand and one side of the cover with the other. The text block shouldn't really be able to move all that independently from the covers. This is an easy repair, but it tends gets worse the more the book is used

Sorry for the long reply, hope this helps?
posted by arcolz at 2:37 AM on October 17 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Be careful if you are doing this with cheap paperbacks, books printed in the 60s-80s, or books printed in India or China. They tend to use cheaper (or older) adhesive that can be brittle. Purposefully bending the spine on one of these books can cause it to crack, leading to pages falling out or the entire text block splitting in two."

The justification I learned for this practice (from a middle school English teacher), was that it was to be done only with new paperbacks, so that the glue was stretched now (and evenly), before it became old and brittle.
posted by Jahaza at 4:05 AM on October 17

I was taught this method in elementary school, and of course we just used it with new textbooks. The binding were heavy-duty, so the purpose might not have been to make them last longer. But the pages did lie down more readily, which made it easier to just leave the book open on the desk while we were working.
posted by wryly at 7:02 AM on October 17

Hmm– I'm not seeing agreement here. A bit more information: I'm a school librarian, buying ~10 new books/month and trying to avoid having so many end up in the 'repair' pile. I understand that binding practices have taken a steep dive in recent years, and I suspect that my purchases are cheaper than average (no budget for 'library bindings'). Anyway, thanks for the advice!
posted by carterk at 8:00 AM on October 17

I understood this practice as a way to stretch the binding evenly to prevent warping of the book. The warping I mean is most obvious on larger, cheaper paperbacks that have been well-read. The front cover tends to slide to the right far more than the back cover, leading to a book that is no longer a nice rectangular prism. Cheap paperbacks probably don't matter much, but I prefer my hardbacks to remain neat and tidy (and square).
posted by dormouse at 8:24 PM on October 17

Here's an illustration of the process.

Mr. Lioness finds me a depraved book-torturing brute when I do this to my paperbacks, but I like the comfort of a nice, evenly broken spine for reading single-handedly in bed.
posted by lioness at 3:00 PM on October 18