Paid a visit to the printer’s and bookbinder’s this afternoon. It was really interesting to see what actually goes on at the printer’s. My colleagues and I were given a tour of the premises and we got to see the huge machines that produce the films and plates that are required for the printing machines. Then we went to the bookbinder’s to see how these sheets of paper are bound together to form a book.
All very interesting stuff. I learnt about different kinds of binding and what sorts of binding are better suited to certain kinds of books. Also, the type of glue used to glue the spine of the book together also depends on the climate (mainly to do with the humidity) in which the books will be sold in.
And if you find that you aren’t able to flip the pages of a book very smoothly, it’s because the grain of the paper isn’t running parallel to the spine.
Editors, when finalising the pagination of a book, should also try to ensure that the total number of pages is divisble by 4. Otherwise, there will be blank pages at the back of the book due to the way the paper is folded.
Anyway, I shan’t bore my readers any further. But just thought some of you might be interested in this sort of trivia since I know that quite a few of us are book lovers!