Antiquarian Maps and Atlases

[Redrobes]

How absolutely awsome ! What a treat it is to have so many individuals with such skills on this site.

I have a question: As a book binder, what is the worst things that you can do to old books to inadvertently destroy them whilst attempting to care for them and read them ?

I have older fiction & role playing books where the spine is not keeping some of the pages in them well any more and then corners of pages of softbacks getting scuffed from use and also my page ends seem to yellow. Any general tips or definite no no's ?

[BenjaminGPointer]

I have a question: As a book binder, what is the worst things that you can do to old books to inadvertently destroy them whilst attempting to care for them and read them ?

I have older fiction & role playing books where the spine is not keeping some of the pages in them well any more and then corners of pages of softbacks getting scuffed from use and also my page ends seem to yellow. Any general tips or definite no no's ?

It's difficult to say a WORST thing because I don't know how you treat your books and it always varies from book to book. High humidity and poor air-flow will lead to mould, pulling books away from the wall/back of bookcase can help with air flow. Smoking as well as leaving a smell in books might increase the rate of deterioration, but probably not by enough to matter. Clean, dry hands will leave less oil on pages so you won't get dark marks wherever you usually turn or flick pages. Don't fold corners! For hardcover books, don't open them too far, so opening flat on the table will make it break sooner (usually). Oh and also don't use the headcap (the little lip at the top of the spine) to pull books off shelves; this weakens the spine and can break the top off.

Regarding your specific questions: Nothing can be done about scuffing corners other than being careful. Pages yellowing is usually unavoidable, it's heavily dependent on the amount of lignin in the paper, older or cheaper paperbacks usually have terrible paper for yellowing. Aside from my above advice I can only recommend dusting them occasionally. If pages are coming out I assume they are "perfect bound" which basically means that the back edges of the pages are just glued together, rather than sewn and glued. If the pages are all individual, unfolded sheets, the only remedy (that doesn't involve taking the book apart and rebinding it) would be to just carefully run a little glue down the spine edge of the page(s) and reinsert. If in doubt you can message me a picture of the book and damage and I can try and help from there.

I hope this has been helpful.