futureofthebook.com
preservation and persistence of the changing book

Introduction

Commentary

Reports

Workshops

Store

Links

Taxonomy of Book Bindings

A System for Identification of Bookbinding Structures

  Here is a system for identification of bookbinding structures, both old and new. This system is based on the type of cover to text attachment. To use this system we ask; “Is the cover to text attachment exactly at the position of the folds of the endpapers or is the attachment set back away from the folds?”   This small difference between cover to text attachment location is an important structural distinction. The different attachment types indicate different sequences of fabrication and different conventions from the history of bookbinding. They can also indicate different book actions.

  Most book bindings are easily identified using this system. Some examples such as tight joint leather work or early publishers’ cloth bindings must be inspected closely with observation of their opening motions and construction features, but they will fall into either laced or cased types. The terms laced and cased are layered with old usage, but they can simply signify two different cover to text attachment positions.

  Six distinctive types of cover to text attachment are described here. These are termed the (1.) UNCASED, (2.) CASED, (3.) LACED, (4.) LACED-CASE, (5.) LACED-LACED, and (6.) LACED-CASE types.

  The UNCASED type is a text without a cover. This designation provides a type for the “paperback” or historical booklet wrapped in paper. The “cover” is only an outer sheet adhered to the back of the text. Even long stitch bindings can fit this type where a simple vellum wrapper is sewn, not adhered, to the text.

  The CASED type designated the modern “hardback” binding. Here the cover to text attachment is set back away from the folds of the endpapers and the back of the text moves independently of the spine of the cover. Such cased binding emerged in eighteenth century German work with a lapped component paper cover. (see also History of Case Binding)

The LACED type designates book bindings with the covers attached exactly at the folds of the endpapers. This is the type of the earliest multi-quire codex bindings. The construction involves setting the boards up to the folds of the endpapers, frequently with the boards secured in place by the text sewing or by lacing of sewing supports through the boards. However, such mechanical attachment is not necessary since laced attachment can be produced adhesively as with a hollow tube.

  The construction sequence alone, producing the cover separately or assembling the cover on the text, is not a fully reliable indicator of either cased or laced construction. However, cased construction covers are usually produced and finished off the book.

  The LACED-CASE type is an interesting structure that is easily identified. The best known example is the Italian limp vellum or limp paper binding. In this type the sewing supports are laced through the cover at the position of the folds of the endpapers while the pastedowns and natural hollow operate with an attachment set back as in cased binding. A modern experiment laces the supports through the cover at a position set back from the folds of the endpapers creating an authentic laced case, but this is not a historical type.

  The LACED-LACED type is a double cover binding which has not been seen for a millennium. The famous “furrow” in the edges of traditional Greek bindings may echo such an ancestral type with two separate covers since such binding is known from Coptic examples. These double boards of papyrus cartonnage were set and attached flush to the folds of the endpapers.

  The LACED-CASED is a modern double cover binding with a releasing spine wrapper attached over a laced sewn board binding. It is also possible to include the conventional stationers’ spring back ledger in this type, especially in terms of book action.

  This system for identifying binding types is fun to use and useful to apply. Please forward comments and corrections to gary-frost@uiowa.edu  Those who study book bindings are bound to be free!