Whites/Law Bindery takes pride in binding Law Reports in the traditional way. In fact, we have been binding books for some of Australia's leading Legal Institutions and Firms since the 1940's.

Despite economic pressure and lack of information in the market place, we have managed to maintain and even improve our standards, and still sew our books, unlike many binders, who are simply bread and butter Public Library Binders. These firms bind for for public libraries and many do not sew at all.

Unlike books in public libraries, which are often outdated before they are printed, LawReports by the very nature of our legal system, are required for reference for generations.

Similar to digging the foundations of a building, which cannot be seen,
it takes about 30% of the total time to sew a book for binding. Yet this work is not easily noticed. Simply glueing and not sewing, saves an abundance of time for a bookbinder. Many modern Librarians are not informed about binding and are not particularly interested in books as such.. so they think that they are getting a bargain as opposed to a future potential pile of loose pages.

Needless to say, this is a thorn in the side of our fight to mainain quality, especially when it comes to maintaining standards and the skills of our craft. Consequently, it is difficult for us to train young artesians and apprentices.

Many who decry the decline of the bookbinding craft,  by their actions, do not support it. 

Many people do not even understand preparation of the book block  in bookbinding. For example glued bindings. Flexible plastic glues are flexible because they contain plasticisers. Plasticisers migrate out of the substances that they are contained in. They do this at varying rates, depending on the environment (for example in and out of the sun or airconditioning).  Plastic glues eventually go hard. Plastic glues may stand up to initial wear but time and airc onditioning, is their enemy, not use!!!

They go brittle ir-regardless of use!!!

In our opinion, future conservationists are going to have a field day in repairing various glued collections in Australian Departmental Librarieswho skimp to look good in their annual binding budgets.

We take pride in maintaining our own high standards. Despite this continual economic pressure towards mediocrity, we try to improve our standards wherever we can, rather than to lower them.

We regularly commission the tanning of leather to our own ph and conservation requirements. This is because nowadays, leather is mainly produced for upholstery, and the resultant rubbery substance is not suitable for bookbinding.