Book Arts Message Board

I'm an amateur bookbinder, and have taken papermaking and letterpress classes as well. I've been a member of the Chicago Hand Bookbinders for a number of years. I'm hoping members of the group can help each other out by pointing the way to good books about the book arts, and just generally sharing about the subject.

I have no experience, but tons of interest in this area. I'd love to know what books you'd reccomend to a neophyte with no one to help them along.

A couple of very basic books are Basic Bookbinding, by A.W. Lewis, available in an inexpensive Dover edition, Bookbinding and the Care of Books, by Douglas Cockerell and Manley Miles Banister's Pictorial Manual of Bookbinding. There are several books by Keith A. Smith that I like, but people seem to find them either very easy or impossible to follow! If you have any interest in Japanese bookbinding, the book to have is Japanese Bookbinding, by Kojiro Ikegami.

Thanks, I'll have to check those out!

If you don't want to start from scratch, there are a couple of kits (Blank Book Journal Kit and Japanese Stab Binding Kit) that come with all the materials you need. They're a fun way to get started without a large investment.

First, be sure you're logged in! Then go to the group page, and on the upper right you should see an option to "join this group", with a yellow + next to it. Just click on that option and you're a member!

I've taken a couple of bookbinding classes at RISD (RI School of Design) and am hooked!

If you search my library for the tag "bookbinding" you'll see what I've got. (Only one book in there now, I'm still in the process of adding my library to LT!)

Ha. Same thing happened to me. I took a Beginning Bookbinding class at the Newberry Library in Chicago several years ago. No one warned me it was addictive!

Bookbinding is something I will do "one day" - there are very few bookbinders in my area and so far I have not been able to find a class. I got hooked on the idea after seeing some fabulous bindings in an exhibition at the Frankfurt Book Fair, some 20 years ago.

I started out self-taught then began taking classes at Hollander's School of Book & Paper Arts. Hollander's is a great resource, and if you don't live in or near Ann Arbor, MI, they have a wonderful mail order service.

My books on the subject are tagged "bookbinding," "book arts," or both.

I can recommend Aldren Watson's Hand Bookbinding: A Manual of Instruction. The illustrations really make this accessable.

I'm currently planning on a hand made book major and probably a double with printmaking. It may change in the future but I'm really enjoying myself.
Right now I'm in my first papermaking class.
I need to get my textbooks entered one of these days.

If anyone has knows of any books on chiaroscuro watermarks by the way I'm all ears..

Anyone own any Arion Press editions?

"Not I," said Foxy Loxy.

Just looking around here, and you *may* find the craftster.org site fun. The have altered books and bookbinding forums and a bunch of other crafty stuff.

Here are a few book sites I think you might find helpful. There are many more but these were the ones I could find quickly. There was on site in particular I wanted to point out that was great. It showed how to make your own paperback books. The steps worked perfectly and I was able to make some store bought looking paperback (trade paperback sized) books. If I can find it I will post it. It was sooooo easy to do and as I said it looked great. I went to Project Gutenberg and copied some books that were out of print and that I wanted. Then I used word to format the text into a nice book. Printing was a bear because it takes some thinking to get the fronts and backs of pages printed right. I did it so that I printed 2 pages (4 sides) on one sheet and then cut the sheets in half to make pages.

http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/ - This page offers links to free online bookbinding books.

http://www.indiana.edu/~libpres/manual/treatments/cbind/index.html - This is an online demo for binding books.

http://www.mothteeth.com/bookmaking/ - Another book binding demo.

http://familycrafts.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=familycr... - This site offers step by step instructions for a Japanese 5 stitch binding. This is a very simple binding, but it is extremely sturdy, if you use good materials. If you put a cover on properly it looks very professional. I have my LT catalogue printed out and bound in this manner. I use it when shopping for books to avoid buying books I already own. People have stopped me and asked me about it, wanting to know either where I got it or how I did it.

http://www.philobiblon.com/ - This is a great resource for bookbinding information. Check out the links section for tons of links to binding demos and tips.

This may have been posted before, but I thought it would be of interest to this group.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/watch-a-book-being-made-the-oldfashioned-wa...

Did you know there is a Bookplates group? Totally obscure and dormant, but worth a shake-up perhaps.

https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/18596/Bookplates%25252FEx-Libris

Please join.