OpenTube

Book Repair on a Budget: Consolidating a Textblock

UNCG Special Collections and University Archives

175,508 views

Sometimes, publishers' bindings tend to break apart at the spine where the adhesive fails or spine linings age. This is a demonstration of how to repair the textblock (pages of the book) when it has split.

UPDATE: I am so sorry that I left out the name of the glue. It is polyvinyl acetate or PVA. White school glue, such as Elmer's, is PVA. Or, for a more archival version, search for neutral pH PVA. For a list of other book repair resources, see our Preservation Libguide: https://uncg.libguides.com/preservati...

20 Comments

@creativesparks2164 3 years ago (edited)

The thumbnail is exactly what’s happening to my book.
I got SOOO lucky to have found this.
Hopefully whatever she says can help

Edit: just did it & OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭 I’m amazed! I can’t even recognize the section that was messed up! Looks BRAND NEW!

@CarynCaldwell 5 years ago

That was very helpful! It feels like so many book repair videos require some pretty specialized supplies, but this was all stuff my small school library either has on hand or can substitute for. Thanks!

@ladyofwildrose 2 years ago (edited)

Thank you sooo much! Sooo simple! I wore out my favorite soft cover Bible which is now split in two. I had no clue how to put it back together - I thought it would be so much more complicated than it is and it's been in disrepair for many years. I now know how to put it back together thanks to your simple tutorial. Very grateful.🥰

@knothead5 3 months ago

Just what the doctor ordered. Trying to read an old book that has "falling apart" syndrome.

@trackie1957 3 years ago

Fantastic! Now I’m wondering if my local library needs volunteers to do this work. I think I’d love it!

@Phymaths 2 years ago

If I could give a heart to a video, I would give this video a heart. Just love to see a book getting repaired. ❤

@Joeyzhou81525 2 years ago

Thank you very much. You just saved my one of a kind Bible I bought over 20 years ago.

@rizwansharif1 6 years ago

the camera focus deserves an Oscar.

@JAFFER3657 7 years ago

Thank you so much, gonna try it on my study text.

@GTaichou 3 years ago

Thank you for sharing! A gifted paperback had pages pop out today. I am so glad to know there is an elegant and simple way to repair it!

@zyxw2000 1 year ago

I love books that have the old library card envelopes with the old card inside.

@Jack_Bacher 6 years ago

thanks so much for i was able to repair my players handbook for dnd

@cocofleur7298 5 years ago

I really needed to see this because I just ordered my hard cover book and at first I just lost one page and then I saw her losing more than one page and then finally the whole book fell apart. As a customer obviously that really annoys me but as a writer it’s devastating in a way because I worked so hard on it but thank you for posting this

@JS_Jason 1 month ago

This worked perfectly!!! Thank you!

@TileGuyJesse 1 year ago

This is just what I was looking for. My Bible was splitting at John chapter one. You're instructions at the beginning of the video was the ticket! God bless you!! 🥰

@channelsixtysix066 5 years ago

I had to repair some of my text books and guessed what had to be done. Watching your video, confirmed what I did was correct, repairing a hardcover textbook. I've got a 12kg anvil. I think that will do a good job at clamping.