=330.= For public library work only good binders who are experienced in this particular class of bookbinding should be employed. In many cases, especially in small towns, the work turned out by local binders is about as bad as it can well be, and just as likely to lead to the rapid destruction of books as to their preservation. Cheapness does not in this matter necessarily mean economy, nor is good workmanship often an accompaniment of low prices. It may be said generally that library binding is one of the items of maintenance which no library can _afford_ to have done cheaply and badly. It is much better, in the long run, for a library in a small provincial town to send its work to a recognized bookbinder in a large town, and even to pay carriage both ways, than to depend upon the local bookseller or stationer, who only knows about the casing of magazines. A good binder will bind a book in a manner which will enable the boards to outlive the leaves, while a poor workman will require to have his work done over again very soon, if, meanwhile, his rough and unscientific methods have not tended to shorten the existence of the book. =331.= The question of binding books from the sheets, or rebinding cloth- and paper-board books in leather, before putting them in circulation, has been much debated, though it is really not a very formidable or difficult matter after all. As no one can foretell with certainty whether or not any given book is going to be popular and much used, it is manifestly a mistake to have any book re-bound, or specially bound from the sheets, until this very important point has been ascertained. Time alone can determine whether a book is going to be popular, and for this reason there seems little economy or gain in specially binding new books at the outset. Books in publishers’ cloth bindings, when printed on paper of fair quality, will often circulate from twenty to forty times before attaining a condition which requires re-binding, and when strongly and properly rebound in leather or other boards will outlast the book. Some claims have been advanced with regard to the durability of various styles of binding, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that it is the paper of the book and not the covers of the binding which forms the weak point.