Thanks, guys!
I found this:
[link]
4 oz. should be enough, right? I think I could probably repair my sun-melted copy of
Jane Eyre,
too.
Oh, it does look like I could find Weldbond at a local crafts store or something pretty easily. And that will work?
Why does it need to be acid-free? What would happen if I used regular Elmer's glue or rubber cement or something? Or, like, a hot glue gun?
Once I purchase something, I will be back to find out if there's anything special I need to do to make sure I glue it together right. I don't have a vise or anything.
Why does it need to be acid-free?
The acids in the glue will eat the paper, and you'll be doing this again in a while.
Of course, if you don't care about the paper of your books . . .
Acids eating paper? That's science-fiction mumbo-jumbo.
Acids eating paper? That's science-fiction mumbo-jumbo.
Sure, you little whipper-snapper. That lovely booky smell you get when you walk into a library? That's the smell of books dying an acidy death.
Whipper-snapper. Snapper of whips? Therefore, is Indiana Jones a whipper-snapper?
That's horrible!
Yup. I love it and hate it at the same time.
That's the smell of books dying an acidy death.
And so they are! Alas that they are so;
To die, even as they to perfection grow.
joins Sunil in the traumatised corner, and tries to ignore the tiny rustling screams of dying books.
Acid in the paper is what causes old books to have such fragile pages. When books were more treasures and less mass-produced, they were printed on higher quality rag paper. It's the acids from wood pulp that is the problem. Really early books were printed on vellum (sheepskin) and parchment (which is rag, I think), which lasts forever and is why we still have things like the Gutenberg Bible and near-original Chaucers.
Edit
the tiny rustling screams of dying books
What a macabre image. When I walk into a library or bookstore and smell that wonderful, sad odor, I want to grab all the books and promise them I'll save them.
I didn't smell that at the Huntington Library. Of course, those folks know how to preserve a book.
100% cotton or hemp can easily be made acid free. (Acid free hemp paper should last millenia )
