Bookbinding Overview

There are few hobbies or skills out there that combine the feeling of the white collar knowledge with the blue collar skills in the way that bookbinding does. Not only does this hobby or trade allow you to work with books (sometimes very old books if you’re repairing), but bookbinding also forces you to become skilled with your hands in order to work the stitching or binding as needed.

Many people start out with bookbinding because they want to self-publish a book, a collection of manuscripts, or a manifesto of some kind. In this case many will use plastic binding, or spiral bookbinding in order to put something together. But some bookbinders will go the extra mile and deal with hardcover bookbinding and stitching in order to ger that just right look.

Other easier ways are to just get the bookbinding supplies you need to create a newly bound book from scratch. This can go from the relatively common and easy spiral bound reports to even creating your own self-published hardcover books. There are many different types of bookbinding, and we are going to go over some of those in this article.

Bookbinding has a long and proud history, one that starts all the way back in the 2nd century in Egypt. Coptic bookbinding was practiced by the Coptic Christians in the area, and involved making folds on individual parchments, then sewing through the folds in order to make a larger book. This type of bookbinding lasted nearly one thousand years.

After Coptic bookbinding came long stitch bookbinding. This method of binding books is actually quite popular and although it isn’t one of the most common methods used today, it still sees plenty of use. Long stitch bookbinding involves using a slotted cover, which helps to bind the pages more tightly together without having to use nearly as much glue.

One of the most common methods of bookbinding that is popular today is the one mentioned earlier, which is spiral bookbinding. This is sometimes also referred to as plastic coil bookbinding and is what you get when you often see office reports or manifestos. Many local cookbooks also appear in this form.

These are just a few of the styles and methods that are available when it comes to bookbinding. Do a little research, find a good how to book or a mentor, and dive in! You might find that this is the hobby you’ve been looking for all along.

If you want to learn more about book binding, please have a look at this page covering a wide range of topics, including book binding instruction.