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Book & Paper Glossary
Acid-free
materials that are pH neutral (about 7) or alkaline (7 or higher) buffered.
Acid-Migration
acid transfer from one acidic item to another by contact.
Adhesive binding
single sheets or signature held together by an adhesive such as a PVA or hot melt instead of by sewing.
Archival
anything labeled archival should be acid-free and/or reversible.
Bands
the leather-covered cords across the spine of a book, forming ridges, as “raised bands”.
Binder’s Board
stiff gray board used for the cover of books.
Boards
1. wooden pressing boards used in binding operations.
2. binder’s board
3. hard covers on a book.
Board sheet
that portion of an endpaper pasted to the inside board of a book (=pastedown).
Book Block
the text pages or “insides” of a book or pamphlet.
Bristol
heavy weight paper such as that used fo rfile folders.
Buckram
heavy, strong bookcloth. The starch-filled type is usually preferable.
Case
the protective cover around the book, made separately and then joined to the book block.
Casing-in
attaching a case to the book block.
Clamshell Box
a protective enclosure consisting of two trays which fit into one another and are attached to a case.
Collate
checking the proper order of all paginated and unpaginated pages before sewing a book or on receipt of any rare book.
Conjugate Leaves
also called folios or bifolios, they are the two leaves which make up one continuous piece of paper in a section. They are not necessarily adjacent to one another.
Cords see bands.
Crash see super.
Endbands see headbands.
Endpaper, Endsheets
blank leaves at the beginning and end of a book or pamphlet. They can be plain or decorated.
Flyleaves
the free-swinging portion of an endpaper.
Folio
a sheet of paper folded once. It forms two leaves or four pages.
Fore Edge
the edge opposite the spine of a book.
Foxing
rust-colored spots that develop in paper, usually due to high humidity and impurities present in the paper.
Guard
1. the strip of paper (usually Japanese) used to mend or join two leaves together.
2. the strip of paper or cloth on which plates or maps are mounted.
3. verb: to reinforce the fold of a signature.
Gutter
the inner margins of the pages, close to the spine.
Head
top of the book or top of the spine.
Headband
a decorative embroidered strip of cloth glued at the head and tail of the spine of the book. In early binding and in hand binding they are often embroided by hand around a core of leather or string.
Headcap
the covering that has been shaped over the headbands at the head and tail of the spine of a hand bound book.
Hinge
1. a strip of paper to which a leaf or tip-in is attached.
2. the flexible area of the binding where the spine and the boards are connected. The hinge is between the boardsheet and the textblock when looking at an open book.
Hollitex see polyester web.
Joints
the flexible area on the outside of the binding where the spine and the boards of the book connect.
Kettle stitch
A particular knot in the sewing process which connects each signature to the preceding one, at head and tail.
Leaf
a piece of paper consisting of two pages, one on each side (the recto and the verso).
Limp Binding
a flexible, soft binding without rigid boards.
Moisture Barrier
a piece of waxed paper of Mylar which prevents moisture from moving from one area to another.
Mylar, Mellinex see polyester film.
parchment see vellum.
Polyester Film
a clear, chemically inert and stable polyester material used for encapsulation. Mylar or Mellinex are brand names.
Polyester Web
a strong non-woven materials, used to support wet paper or to prevent pasted paper from sticking to neighboring pages while drying. Hollitex or Remay are brand names.
Pressboard
a strong lightweight board with a hard, shiny and sometimes mottled surface. Often used to make pamphlet binders.
Pressing Boards see boards.
Reback
the replacement of a worn or missing spine with new material, either cloth or leather, while retaining the original boards.
Recto
the front of a leaf or document, or the right hand page of an open book.
Remay see polyester web.
Reversible
processes which can be undone without damaging or altering the original materials.
Saddle stitching
stiching together a single signature pamphlet by passing thread through the fold line.
Section see signature.
Sewing stations
the holes along the folds of a signature, through which thread passes during the sewing process.
Shaken
a book that is loose in its case.
Shoulder
the shaped edges of the spine of the bookblock against which the boards sit.
Signature
the pages formed by the folding of a single sheet. The number of pages depends on the number of times the sheet is folded. A sheet folded once makes a folio (2 leaves, 4 pages): twice, a quarto (4 leaves,
8 pages); three times, an octavo (8 leaves, 16 pages)
Spine
The bound edge of a book.
Spine Lining
the cloth which is glued to the spine of the bookblock to reinforce it and in some cases, to provide hinges. Usually lawn, muslin, super or mull.
Starch Filled
bookcloth that is coated or filled with starch.
Stub
a longitudinal tab on the inner edge of a leaf which is folded for sewing or used for tipping-on an insert.
Super
a heavily sized cloth with the appearance of coarse cheese-cloth used to line the spine. It often breaks and is usually replaced with lawn, muslin or linen in the repair process.
Tail
the bottom edge of the book, in particular, the bottom of the spine.
Tape
in some types of binding, the approx. ¼” linen or cotton tape over and under which the sewing thread is anchored on the spine.
Textblock see book block.
Tip, Tip-in
to attach an item such as a letter or an illustration into a bound book by applying a narrow line of adheseive n one of its edges.
Tube, Hollow Tube
a piece of paper folded in three and glued in such a way as to create a hollow tube the same width as the spine. The single side is adhered to the spine of the book and the double side to the spine of the
case.
Turn-in
the covering material that is turned inside around all edges of the boards.
Vellum
an animal skin that has been treated with lime and stretched and scraped rather than tanned. Used for writing, printing and binding books.
Verso
the back of a document or page or the lefthand page of an open book.
Wrapper
a protective enclosure constructed of Bristol or other lightweight board.
More extensive glossaries are to be found in
Greenfield, Kyle (see bibliography), Roberts & Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books, Washington 1982, and John Carter, ABC for Book Collectors, New Castle, 1995.
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