A springback binder is a device for rapid and repeated binding of loose-leaf collections into books.
The springback binder resembles the outer parts of a hardcover book, with a spine, a front cover, and a back cover. The spine however includes a steel spring that serves to hold together the inner book as soon as it is inserted. When the front and back covers are pushed apart by more than 270 degrees, the spring will open, and the inner book can be inserted, removed or supplemented by individual leaves. The process takes only a few seconds, and the finished bound book is like a book with hard cover. Typical paper sizes are A4 and A5, or their equivalent, the maximum stack height is usually 2 cm.
In contrast to other binding methods, the binder can be reused by simply removing the old inner book block and replacing it by a new one. This way, the binder can be used for decades for always new content. Furthermore, no additional devices are required than the binder itself. Since the inner book is neither glued, nor stitched or stapled, it can still be used as a master for additional copies.
In the GDR, a springback binder in A5 format was part of a first grader's typical equipment. During the school year, it was filled with exercise sheets that were distributed one by one.
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex. In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page.
The codex was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term codex is often used for ancient manuscript books, with handwritten contents. A codex, much like the modern book, is bound by stacking the pages and securing one set of edges by a variety of methods over the centuries, yet in a form analogous to modern bookbinding. Modern books are divided into paperback or softback and those bound with stiff boards, called hardbacks. Elaborate historical bindings are called treasure bindings. At least in the Western world, the main alternative to the paged codex format for a long document was the continuous scroll, which was the dominant form of document in the ancient world. Some codices are continuously folded like a concertina, in particular the Maya codices and Aztec codices, which are actually long sheets of paper or animal skin folded into pages.
A hinge is a mechanical bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation: all other translations or rotations being prevented, and thus a hinge has one degree of freedom. Hinges may be made of flexible material or of moving components. In biology, many joints function as hinges, like the elbow joint.
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback book is one bound with rigid protective covers. It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk.
Library binding can be divided into the two major categories of "original" and "after market". The original category is as it says: the book was originally bound with the idea that it would be used in a library setting where the book would receive harder use than those usual trade editions sold to the public.
The dust jacket of a book is the detachable outer cover, usually made of paper and printed with text and illustrations. This outer cover has folded flaps that hold it to the front and back book covers.
Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage.
A hole punch, also known as hole puncher, or paper puncher, is an office tool that is used to create holes in sheets of paper, often for the purpose of collecting the sheets in a binder or folder. A hole punch can also refer to similar tools for other materials, such as leather, cloth, or plastic or metal sheets.
A bulldog clip is a device for temporarily but firmly binding sheets of paper together. It consists of a rectangular sheet of springy steel curved into a cylinder, with two flat steel strips inserted to form combined handles and jaws. The user presses the two handles together, causing the jaws to open against the force of the spring, then inserts a stack of papers and releases the handles. The spring forces the jaws together, gripping the papers firmly.
Ring binders are large folders that contain file folders or hole punched papers. These binders come in various sizes and can accommodate an array of paper sizes. These are held in the binder by circular or D-shaped retainers, onto which the contents are threaded. The rings themselves come in a variety of sizes, including 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 inches, though other sizes are also available. The rings are usually spring-loaded, but can also be secured by lever arch mechanisms or other securing systems. The binders themselves are typically made from plastic with metal rings. Early designs were patented during the early 1890s to the early 1900s.
A loose leaf is a piece of paper of any kind that is not bound in place, or available on a continuous roll, and may be punched so as to be organized in a ring binder. Loose leaf paper may be sold as free sheets, or made up into notepads, where perforations or glue allow them to be removed easily. "Leaf" in many languages refers to a sheet or page of paper, as in Folio, as in feuille de papier (French), hoja de papel (Spanish), foglio di carta (Italian).
Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components and elements of a book into a coherent unit. In the words of renowned typographer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974), book design, "though largely forgotten today, [relies upon] methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve, [and which] have been developed over centuries. To produce perfect books, these rules have to be brought back to life and applied". Richard Hendel describes book design as "an arcane subject", and refers to the need for a context to understand what that means.
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from folio, to quarto (smaller) and octavo. Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the original sheet. For example, a quarto historically was a book printed on sheets of paper folded in half twice, with the first fold at right angles to the second, to produce 4 leaves, each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed – note that a leaf refers to the single piece of paper, whereas a page is one side of a leaf. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly descriptions.
Traditional Chinese bookbinding, also called stitched binding, is the method of bookbinding that the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese used before adopting the modern codex form.
VeloBind is a type of book binding often offered at copy and print shops. Velobinding involves punching several small holes along the edge of an unbound book. A strip of plastic with rigid tines is inserted into the holes from the top of the book, and a strip with corresponding holes is placed on the back with the tines protruding through. The book is then placed in a machine that holds the book tightly while the excess length of the tines is cut and the tips melted to seal the bind. The term "VeloBind" is a trademark of the General Binding Corporation, but is regularly used generically to refer to this process, though strip binding is also sometimes used.
Book scanning or book digitization is the process of converting physical books and magazines into digital media such as images, electronic text, or electronic books (e-books) by using an image scanner. Large scale book scanning projects have made many books available online.
Coptic binding or Coptic sewing comprises methods of bookbinding employed by early Christians in Egypt, the Copts, and used from as early as the 2nd century AD to the 11th century. The term is also used to describe modern bindings sewn in the same style.
Coil binding, also known as spiral binding, is a commonly used book binding style for documents. This binding style is known by a number of names including spiral coil, color coil, colorcoil, ez-coil, plastic coil, spiral binding, plastikoil and coilbind.
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of signatures, sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, but less permanent, methods for binding books include loose-leaf rings, individual screw-posts, twin loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs. For protection, the bound stack of signatures is wrapped in a flexible cover or is attached to stiffened boards. Finally, an attractive cover is placed onto the boards, which includes the publisher's information, and artistic decorations.
Nelson's Perpetual Loose Leaf Encyclopaedia: An International Work of Reference was an encyclopedia originally published in twelve volumes by Thomas Nelson and Sons starting with Volume 1 in 1906 through to Volume 12 in 1907. It was published in loose leaf format; subscribers received updates every six months. Its editor-in-chief was John H. Finley. It ceased publication in approximately 1934.