Soft vs hard cover acquisitions

I think the discussion of this topic would not be complete without
mentioning efforts by preservation depts. to conserve their soft cover
books short of library binding.  At Northwestern, we have a procedure
for reinforcing soft cover sewn volumes that come into the library.  It
is an adaptation of that developed at Johns Hopkins.
 
For medium to light volumes we reinforce the cover joints with mulberry
tissue applied with PVA, then stiffen the cover with an acid-free
pressboard attached with #415 3M tape.  The pressboard is cut 1/4" short
of the width to allow for an additional joint crease which distributes
the stress of opening.  Any printed matter that might be on the inside
covers is copied onto A/F paper and tipped onto the text.  This method
is very inexpensive, retains the original cover, and has proven to be
durable in our circulating collections.  We do rebind our adhesively
bound soft cover material however.

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                   Conservation DistList Instance 4:5
                  Distributed: Thursday, May 28, 1990
                        Message Id: cdl-4-5-002
                                  ***