Hints to Book-Collectors
Never write your name upon the title-page of a book.
Have your books cut as large as possible, so as to preserve the integrity of the margin.
Do not adopt one style of binding for all your books.
Let the bindings upon your books be characteristic of the contents and of the value of the work.
Employ Turkey morocco for large works or for books that you have in constant use. It is the most durable material used in binding, except Levant morocco, which is very expensive.
English coloured calf makes a beautiful covering, and bears full gilt tooling better than morocco. The latter, if too richly charged, is apt to look tawdry.
Let the durability and neatness of your bindings be the primary requisites. Ornament judiciously and sparingly, rather than carelessly or gaudily.
Poetry and sermons are not to be treated alike, either in colour or degree of ornament to be employed.
The value of a library will be enhanced by the amount of knowledge and taste displayed in the bindings.
Russia leather is no protection against worms, and it speedily cracks along the joint.
Uncut books will command a higher price than those that are cropped.
To bind a book well, it should have ample time to dry after each process.
When you receive a volume from the binder, place it upon your shelf in such a manner that the adjoining volumes will press tightly against it and keep it closed; or, if you lay it upon your table, place other volumes upon it, to prevent the boards from warping, and do not, for some time, use it near the fire.
Upon opening a volume, do not grasp the leaves tightly in your hands. You might thereby break the back. If the book is too tight in the back, lay it upon a flat surface, and open it by taking a few sheets at a time, and lightly pressing upon the open leaves, going thus from the beginning to the end, until the requisite freedom is obtained.
Use a paper-knife, or folder, to cut up the leaves of your uncut books, so that the edges will be smooth and even; otherwise the book will have to be cut down when it is bound.
Do not bind a newly-printed book. It is liable to set off in the pressing.
Never destroy an original binding upon an old volume if the binding be in tolerable condition. An old book should not be rebound, unless it is essential to its preservation; and then it should be, as far as possible, a restoration.
Carefully preserve old writings and autographs upon fly-leaves, unless they are trivial. It is an act of courtesy to the former owner of a book to place his book-plate on the end-board of the volume.
Any blank-leaves that occur in old volumes should not be removed. The bastard or half title should always be preserved.
Have all oblong plates placed in such a manner that the inscription under them will read from the tail to the head of the volume.
Never bind a large map with a small volume. It is liable to tear away; and, in pressing the volume, it makes unseemly marks. Maps and plans should be affixed to blank leaves, so as to open clear of the volume, that the reader may have the plan and text to examine together.
It is a false economy to bind up a number of volumes together, especially if they are of different sizes and upon different subjects.
Keep your books dry, but not too warm. Gas is injurious in a library, especially to the gilding upon the books.
Do not place books with uncut tops where the dust will fall upon them. It will penetrate between the leaves and mar the interior of the volumes.
Avoid placing books with clasps or carved sides upon the shelves. They will mark and scratch their neighbours.
Never fold down corners, or wet your fingers, when reading or turning over the pages of a book.
Do not read a book at table. Crumbs are apt to penetrate into the back-fold of the leaves.
Books are not intended for card-racks or for receptacles of botanical specimens.
Never leave a book open, face downward, under the pretext of keeping the place. If it remain long in that condition, it will probably ever afterwards jump open at that place.
Never pull books out of the shelves by the head-bands, or suffer them to stand long upon the fore-edge.
Books should not be toasted before a fire or be converted into cushions to sit upon.
Saturate a rag with camphor, and, when dry, occasionally wipe the dust from your books with it, and you will not be annoyed with book-worms.
Treat books gently; for “books are kind friends. We benefit by their advice, and they exact no confessions.”