Binding for library catalog

     Can anyone suggest a good, cheap method for binding a few sets of a
heavily used book catalogue?  Sounds primitive, I know, but we still
have our serials list issued every six months as a print out.  Our
former, in- house, automated cataloguing system did a far superior job
on serials than our present GEAC system does.  So we have kept that
portion of the old database and produce printout volumes every six
months.  The trouble is that these are VERY heavily used, and start to
shed their pages after a month or so.

     The printouts now run to about 550 leaves, 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets
of reasonable quality bond paper.  We have been using a form of Acco
binding - wires through the text block and plastic covers.  The covers
are doing fine, but the pages aren't.  It's not a shelving problem -
these things lie flat on the counters and index tables - it's a use and
abuse problem. People don't usually photocopy from them, the worst abuse
tends to be grabbing a copy by its pages and pulling it across the
table.  Otherwise, it's just the sheer volume of use that's destroying
them.

     The other side of the problem is that we only do about 50 copies of
the lists, so a special binding method would be extra costly for such a
short run.  In any case the library is anxious to keep down the costs,
given that they are discarded every six months.

     Are any of the adhesive bindings now available more likely to stand
up to six months of heavy use?  We could split them into 2 volumes,
although it is more convenient to have them all in one.

     Any suggestions will be gratefully received; either through the
list or directly to MARTINS [at] SKLIB__USASK__CA.

Shirley A. Martin
Head, Special Collections
U of Saskatchewan Library
Canada

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                   Conservation DistList Instance 5:7
                   Distributed: Sunday, June 30, 1991
                        Message Id: cdl-5-7-003
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