Keeping Binding 'In The Fold'

"It's pretty labor intensive," observes Marc Flechsig, manager of the University of Minnesota's bindery. His book binding operation does about 5 percent of its binding by hand, he says, following criteria set by the Library Binding Institute. Basically, if a book is thicker than 2˝ and over five pounds, and includes multiple folded signatures, it gets hand sewn.