Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books
A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology

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inlay

1. A strip of kraft or other relatively stiff paper, used to stiffen the spine area of the case of a library binding. The paper used should be between 0.012 and 0.025 inch in thickness, depending on the size of the book. Edition bindings generally do not have inlays. See also: HOLLOW . 2. An illustration, photograph, picture, or other decoration inlaid in the cover of a book. 3. A manuscript, letter, leaf, etc., mounted in a cut-out frame to protect it and/or permit both sides to be viewed. The edges of the plate, etc., are beveled and pasted to the beveled edges of the sheet cut out to its size. 4. A piece of leather, of the same thickness as the leather covering of a book, but usually of a contrasting color, grain, or both, cut to a desired shape for placing into the leather covering, from which a piece of the exact same size and shape has been removed. If the scheme of decoration calls for tooling over the area of the inlay, the leather for the inlay is cut on a bevel so that the grain surface is slightly larger than the flesh side, while the leather covering is cut in the opposite manner. If, however, the area of the inlay is not to be tooled, the inlay and leather covering are cut vertically. Inlaid bindings were produced in great numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France. Onlaid bindings are often mistakenly described as inlaid. Cf: ONLAY . 5. The setting of a leaf or plate into a larger leaf by cutting out a portion of the latter, beveling, and pasting the leaf or plate over the gap. (161 , 183 , 335 , 343 )




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