Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1992 11:02:22 -0500
From: Donald J Morton PhD <dmorton@UMASSMED.UMMED.EDU>
Subject: OVERSEWING

OVERSEWING

The librarian is caught between the binding Scylla and Charybdis of
having no print to read when there are no inner margins and of
having pages fall out.  Oversewing takes away margins but
keeps pages in place.  By coincidence, we had a fan-glued
volume bound in 1989 show up yesterday in which about 10 pages
were falling out. We get perhaps one such example a month.
We have never had pages falling out of an oversewn volume
despite exceptionally heavy photocopying stress.  Faced with
these dilemmas, it seems preferable to have pages that are
sometimes difficult to copy rather than to not have pages.

For situations where volumes are not subject to such abuse,
or where it is clear that no margins exist to allow both
oversewing and keeping print, alternative and usually less
expensive solutions may be adviseable.