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BE IT KNOWN

THAT

QOLD BOOKSq


may be repaired here

according to the best

Contemporary Conservation

practice

at a reasonable price

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CN Bibliographic

CN Bibliographic offers traditional hand bookbinding, re-binding and repairs (albeit using modern conservation quality materials), together with small-scale publishing, typesetting, editing, proofreading.

Bibliography noun /ˌbɪblɪˈɒgrəfi/
(Bibliographic adj. /-əˈgrafɪk/)

List of books, articles referred to;
the history or systematic description of books, their authorship, printing, publication, editions, etc.

Derivation: from Greek biblion 'book' + -graphia 'writing'; French bibliographie or modern Latin bibliographia.

"CN Bibliographic" therefore indicates anything to do with books. Bibliophiles are welcome in this web site, and so are E-bibliophiles. You can have a handmade leatherbound case for your Kindle or tablet if you like.

Member of the Society of Bookbinders

Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders

Bookbinding

Samuel Pepys writes in his Diary that he had been at the booksellers buying books and specifying how they were to be bound, or getting his old books rebound in a uniform style. At that time it was the general practice that booksellers held stocks of books in unbound sheets as delivered by the printer, and that the purchaser would commission a binding to suit his taste and pocket.

Since the mechanisation of paper-making in the early nineteenth century, books are machine-bound by the thousand. When a modern binding falls apart, it may be cheaper to buy another or to find a better copy in the second-hand or antiquarian book market. On the other hand, it may have value over and above its recommended retail price. It might be scarce, or it may have some powerful association attached to it, and therefore be worth repairing or rebinding.

The basic function of a binding is to protect the text, but may be and often is a significant artefact in its own right. Repair may range from a simple tidy-up, to a re-back process, or possibly, a new binding. Good conservation practice requires intervention to be as little as possible, so the best approach might be to leave it alone and make a box to keep it in. Each book needs to be assessed, and the work to be done determined.

Illustrations of books bound or rebound or repaired - PDF

Publishing

The technology of publishing is developing fast. The well-established process of bringing a book from the author's typescript (or handwriting) to print still involves the traditional stages of copy-editing, typesetting and proofreading, but the people concerned may be distributed around the face of the globe and working with computer typesetting, the internet and e-mail. Proofreading remains important not only for books, but for brochures and other promotional material, reports, and websites. Spell chequers are no substitute. Nothing creates a better negative impression than a single mistake.

Electronic typesetting sometimes comes in useful in producing replacement pages for a book undergoing repair, and so does traditional printing which is still done. Both have their place and long may it remain so. The poster at the top of the page is rendered in typefaces now available to web designers and closely matches a poster printed letterpress by Tilley’s Printing of Ledbury. Tilleys have a wonderful collection of wooden and lead type and have recently taken to printing poetry as posters, commissioned by Tinsmiths in connection with the Ledbury Poetry Festival, and pasting them up here and there around the town. If you are interested in publishing and printing and have the time to take the train to Antwerp (Eurostar) visit the Plantin-Moretus Museum!. Tilley’s is not only like that, but it has never stopped operating in the time-honoured way!

Contact

CN Bibliographic, Church House, Church Lane, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1DP

Tel: 01531 634138

cnlaptop@btinternet.com