page_title: Bookbinding
hierarchical_section_title: Bookbinding
caption_attribution_description: A metal box like compartment set on the end of a short wooden handle. Used for holding separate type sufficient to make up a few words. There is a thumb-screw for holding letters securely in the box. Initials J P on handle. Accession Number: hh.4726.6.88 This holder would have been used by the bookbinder to imprint letters onto the spine or cover of a book. The type and holder would have been heated on a gas stove and then the letters applied to the book cover with gold or foil. Used at Waverley Cameron, Blair Street.Waverley Cameron started as Nisbet MacNiven, a paper maker, in 1770 at Balerno, just outside Edinburgh. It then developed as a stationery wholesaler, after moving into the middle of Edinburgh in 1788. The first Camerons appeared on the scene in 1840 and the name was changed to MacNiven and Cameron in 1845. The Waverley nib (narrow waist and upturned point) was first manufactured for the company by Gillott in 1864, and later by Hinks, Wells. Gillott made the Waverley Pens until the mid 1870s, when they were transferred to Hinks Wells. In 1900, MacNiven and Cameron bought a factory in Birmingham and started to manufacture their pens themselves. The Birmingham factory was at the Watery Lane site from 1900 to 1964. Towards the end of that period, the factory was making mainly paper clips, of the barrel spring type, but some nib manufaturing continued to the end. The Waverley Pen continued, little changed, in production for exactly 100 years, until the Birmingham factory was closed in 1964. This item is on display at the People's Story Museum, the Canongate, Edinburgh. Edinburgh City of Print is a joint project between City of Edinburgh Museums and the Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records (SAPPHIRE). The project aims to catalogue and make accessible the wealth of printing collections held by City of Edinburgh Museums. For more information about the project please visit www.edinburghcityofprint.org
context_page_description: Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of paper sheets that are folded together into sections or sometimes left as a stack of individual sheets. The stack is then bound together along one edge by either sewing with thread through the folds or by a layer of flexible adhesive. Alternative methods of binding that are cheaper but less permanent include loose-leaf rings, individual screw posts or binding posts, twin loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs. For protection, the bound stack is either wrapped in a flexible cover or attached to stiff boards. Finally, an attractive cover is adhered to the boards, including identifying information and decoration. Book artists or specialists in book decoration can also greatly enhance a book's content by creating book-like objects with artistic merit of exceptional quality.
  Before the computer age, the bookbinding trade involved two divisions.
context_section_description: Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of paper sheets that are folded together into sections or sometimes left as a stack of individual sheets. The stack is then bound together along one edge by either sewing with thread through the folds or by a layer of flexible adhesive. Alternative methods of binding that are cheaper but less permanent include loose-leaf rings, individual screw posts or binding posts, twin loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs. For protection, the bound stack is either wrapped in a flexible cover or attached to stiff boards. Finally, an attractive cover is adhered to the boards, including identifying information and decoration. Book artists or specialists in book decoration can also greatly enhance a book's content by creating book-like objects with artistic merit of exceptional quality.
  Before the computer age, the bookbinding trade involved two divisions. First, there was stationery binding (known as vellum binding in the trade) that deals with books intended for handwritten entries such as accounting ledgers, business journals, blank books, and guest log books, along with other general office stationery such as note books, manifold books, day books, diaries, portfolios, etc.  Computers have now replaced the pen and paper based accounting that constituted most of the stationery binding industry. Second was letterpress binding which deals with making books intended for reading, including library binding, fine binding, edition binding, and publisher's bindings. A third division deals with the repair, restoration, and conservation of old used bindings.
  Today, modern bookbinding is divided between hand binding by individual craftsmen working in a shop and commercial bindings mass-produced by high-speed machines in a factory. There is a broad grey area between the two divisions. The size and complexity of a bindery shop varies with job types, for example, from one-of-a-kind custom jobs, to repair/restoration work, to library rebinding, to preservation binding, to small edition binding, to extra binding, and finally to large-run publisher's binding. There are cases where the printing and binding jobs are combined in one shop. For the largest numbers of copies, commercial binding is effected by production runs of ten thousand copies or more in a factory.
caption: Bookbinder's type holder
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SONY DSC", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSLR-A200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (20060914.r.77)  Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:16 10:31:16", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 6, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "400", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1078", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3013", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:12 22:24:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:12 22:24:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "537/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "217/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3248", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2040", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "952", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}