Repairing books

It is recommend that you do not undertake repairs yourself unless you have the knowledge and understanding of what is required. Inappropriate repair materials and/or procedures can often do more harm than good.

Do not use pressure sensitive adhesive tapes like Sellotape™ on torn damaged pages as it tends to become discoloured and can cause indelible staining to paper if left for too long. Although these tapes can in most cases be successfully removed they often have cause further damage to the paper which, in turn, may hinder professional repair. .

If pages have become loose or if the binding of a book has broken, the best solution is to wrap a piece of linen cloth around the book with the loose pages in place inside.

Having a book rebound isn’t always the best option as some books can lose their value as important bibliographic information can be lost during the binding process.

There are mixed opinions on the value of restoration/rebinding of damaged books, obviously we would advocate that they should be treated but in doing so we would always retain where possible as much of the original binding and all bibliographical information held within.

Handling