Re: The Nine Gates - NEW PHOTOS (page 7)
Ever had a finger snapping page turner? turns each page by lifting the page partway between thumb and forefinger then snaps the fingers to make the page flip the rest of the way, leaving a crinkle spot at the bottom of each page
My father does this, despite numerous reprimands from his youngest. :unsure But, he's at that age where he can pretty much do as he pleases. If I saw someone do that in an institutional setting with a rare book, however... :angry
When a spine is broken, as described above, what physically is happening with the book?
By the time a book has its cover boards laced on or otherwise attached, it is, through a combination of paste/adhesive, sewing, reinforcement (mull, muslin, etc.) and so on, a solid block of paper. The fore edge (pages) are all separate and function normally, but the spine feels as it if were one solid object.
When a spine is broken, it basically means the book is broken into two halves, the break extending to the sewing (which has snapped) and sections becoming detached from one another. This damage comes from carelessness on the part of the user or because the book is so old that the sewing has corroded, snapped, and the glue on the spine has completely dried out and become brittle. Or, the binder didn't know what he/she was doing. Books (hand-bound) should always be opened gently and never forced to flatten out.
When the sewing goes, the book is done for unless someone re-sews it.
Sometimes sections (aka signatures) will be detached but the sewing will remain intact, which means that the binder sewed the book too loosely, or didn't round the spine, and in either case it would've needed rebinding anyway even if the spine hadn't broken. That is, if you want the book to last more than 60 years with light use. (Bookbinders tend to think of books having a lifespan of hundreds of years.)
There's a lot of tension on the sewing thread, and it helps to keep the spine intact and the whole book functioning as it should. This is the whole reason behind rounding the spine -- to distribute the tension so that the book opens freely and is usable, but not to eliminate the tension. It's a necessary physical component, and is the most important part of construction. If you ever see a book with broken sewing, a thread sticking up between pages, an alarm should go off. Unfortunately modern books have taught us to judge a book by its cover. :confused We must remember that this craft has gone through centuries of refinement.
Snapped sewing and/or detached sections means that the book is going to have a very short life, and is immediately disabled. The fore edge will protrude or become deformed quickly, pages will begin to loosen and fall out, and the broken areas allow for dust and promotion of mildew, and many other things, that will turn that book into something useless very quickly.
Inside covers becoming detached is often confused with a broken spine, when in actuality it is an easily corrected ailment not related to the spine at all.
The sewing is pretty much the spine. Just as in a human being, if the spine malfunctions or fails, it's a big issue.
