Bookbinding Overview
Bookbinding is a hobby, a skill, and a trade that fascinates thousands of people every single year. This is one of those rare things were the hand and art skills can combine with knowledge, history, and scholarship. While this might come across as kind of a scholarly, high brow hobby, bookbinding is a skill that takes a lot of patience and ability to work with one’s hands.
Some people first get into bookbinding to repair old books that have damaged spines. Others start from scratch because they want to put something original together. Whatever the reason or the way, there are many ways for people to start out with bookbinding.
Another way of getting into bookbinding is to ignore practicing repair work and to start a new project from scratch after buying the materials you would need. Many people will self publish and then hand bind their own books, like a family history. Another common example of bookbinding includes spiral or plastic coil bookbinding, which will help to put together reports and other similar publications.
If you want to go back in history, the first type of bookbinding was Coptic bookbinding. This was named after the Coptic Christians in Egypt as far back as the 2nd century. This was done by taking sections of parchment, making small folds on each page, and stitching together through the folds. This method of bookbinding was used for nearly a full millennium.
Long stitch bookbinding came next, and is a method that is still used today. It’s important to note that “long stitch” methods of bookbinding don’t refer to just one practice, but can include a wide variety of methods, all of which have the one common element of stitching that goes through a slotted cover, reducing the need for any glue.
One of the most common methods of bookbinding that is popular today is the one mentioned earlier, which is spiral bookbinding. This is sometimes also referred to as plastic coil bookbinding and is what you get when you often see office reports or manifestos. Many local cookbooks also appear in this form.
There are many types of bookbinding, and different people may find different methods preferable. Do a little research, give it a try, and you might find that bookbinding is just the hobby you’ve been looking for!