Looking to perform textbook surgery.

May 9, 2007 10:12 PM

I'm looking to cut down a 1000+ page textbook into more manageable and portable chunks. Best practices? What should I watch out for? Most importantly - how do I keep the separated pieces from falling apart?

My only experience with separated books has been a paperback dictionary which naturally fell apart over the years. So much more convenient! Single pages would fall off every now and then, and though I tried to keep them together with tape, it wasn't much of a solution. Any better ways of binding the unbound?

The pages are gathered together in little sections of their own, so I figure I should cut between sections instead of barrelling through them. These sections are then bound together by glue, which is then backed by what seems to be a strip of cloth. I'm hoping that this strip of cloth will be easy to cut, but it may prove to be a subspecies of elephant hide? Is there anything else I should know before I find myself in an irreversible mess?

If it matters, the book in question is Campbell's Biology, 6th edition. No worries about keeping it in one piece for resell purposes - it's worth about ten bucks these days, as apparently all the cool kids are using the 7th edition.

posted by Xere to grab bag (9 comments total)

You could drill holes for a ring binder then saw off the binding. I think Kinkos have the kit to do this.
posted by anadem at 11:05 PM on May 9, 2007

1. Go to Kinko's, have the spine cut off the book.
2. Buy (get access to, find a friend with, snitch time on at the office) a scanner with an ADF tray and duplexer that will automagically PDF the scans.
3. Use Adobe's compress function to get the whole thing down to a manageable file size.
4. Ultraportable laptop (with the file on it, of course). I'm partial to Toshiba's tablet PCs, especially for students. I love mine, and Tablets come with OneNote, another outstanding tool for students.
posted by SlyBevel at 11:09 PM on May 9, 2007

Am I missing something? Most full-service stationery shops will remove a book's spine and revamp it with a spiral binding. I've broken larger books into smaller ones (or had online public domain language books bound after printing them off). The process is also very popular among some disabled people, who need bulky material reduced to a manageable level and to lay flat.
posted by RavinDave at 11:11 PM on May 9, 2007

My dad often rebinds old books around the house. It's fairly straightforward. Take the sections you want and put them all together. Hold them in a vice with the spine edges barely protruding. Use an electric sander or something similar to grind down the paper a millimetre or so, in order to ensure that all edges are even. Put some lovely glue on the paper, wrap some sort of strong fabric (I think he uses calico) around the spine. Done. I think. I might be missing something, but I'm pretty sure that's it. It's not the prettiest result, but it holds together well and lasts... well, none of the ones that he's done have come apart yet.
posted by twirlypen at 12:40 AM on May 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Previously
posted by O9scar at 12:59 AM on May 10, 2007

Law students of my acquaintance do this all the time. 2nding taking them to any full-service copy shop, or ask some grad students where they go.
posted by sonofslim at 5:36 AM on May 10, 2007

I would point out that there are (generally) two types of binding offered at copy shops: a combed binding and a spiral binding. The problem is, they often call the combed binding "spiral". I find them irritating as hell. If you go this route, ask to see an example. (By the way, I found my source by inquiring at a local office advocating for people with disabilities).
posted by RavinDave at 6:35 AM on May 10, 2007

Instructables has an easy binding tutorial - keep your pages together!
posted by DandyRandy at 11:31 AM on May 10, 2007

Kinkos will often also do a perfect/tape binding for you which is essentially a high-tech bit of duct tape. You should be able to cut through that canvas backing with a razor blade with no problem.

Once you do that your real problem is the outlier pages - the ones near the beginning and ending of the section. The stuff in the middle will probably continue to hold just fine if you don't stress it too much.

I've done this with calc and physics books that spanned multiple semesters with no ill effect. Good luck.
posted by phearlez at 2:52 PM on May 10, 2007