Publishing: Making Books, 1947 (VIDEO)

Before Gutenberg, making a book meant writing it by hand. With the invention of the printing press, craft was still important. We found this 1947 video on the process and began to wonder about this becoming a lost art or if it was being replaced by the new art of extraordinary book apps like The Elements. Who are your favorite beautiful book makers these days and will the craft survive?

Comments

[Maegan Chadwick-Dobson]

01:53 AM on 03/17/2011

Handmade bookmaking very much a living art at Tara Books in Chennai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om6i3enGZ8c

[Whitney Stahl]

10:38 PM on 03/16/2011

i hope it's not a dead art. i'm about to master in art and the book! yikes.

[Marietz]

01:28 PM on 03/16/2011

One thing people might not be aware of is that most of the work being done today in publishing is outsourced to India. It began with India purchasing the majority of typesetters here in the US and moving all of the jobs to India. Yes, the work is done on computers, but it must still be done by a human, a human working for pennies.

Now the design of books and editorial work is also being outsourced. A lot of Americans have lost their jobs in publishing due to the mergers of publishers so that only a handful of companies control what gets published and those companies use the talent in India, not Americans. I know what I'm talking about because I've worked in publishing for 38 years. I am now unemployed with no insurance or retirement. Thank you corporations. And most especially thank you outsourcing.

[canadagood]

11:18 AM on 03/16/2011

I have been reading the darn things all my life, yet never never dreamed that they were printed 64 pages on a single sheet. While high-speed newspaper presses were a common sight in old movies, I have never seen 'modern' book printing on film (or video, etc)

[VintageMary]

02:07 AM on 03/16/2011

Oooohhh. This is great!! I love it!

[Tulka2]

04:37 PM on 03/15/2011

....and they were all smart, union men.

[regulargal]

01:01 PM on 03/15/2011

Makes me appreciate my old books.

[missouriwatcher]

10:49 AM on 03/15/2011

Definitely an endangered art.  I had an old book of mine rebound in leather several years back; now the gentleman who did it has passed away, leaving me wondering how difficult it will be to acquire good book-binding services when they are again needed. 

[Tulka2]

04:37 PM on 03/15/2011

http://www.diybookbinding.com/do-it-yourself-book-binding/

As long as the electricity stays on, nothing is lost.

[missouriwatcher]

10:55 PM on 03/15/2011

Thanks for the link, Tulka2.  :-)

[Juzoitami]

09:27 AM on 03/15/2011

It's a film, not a video. Videotape wasn't developed until the early fifties.

[tomstedham]

11:45 AM on 03/15/2011

It's only a film if it's on film when you are watching it... Yes, this was made FROM a film... But what I'm watching on my computer is a "video"...

[Juzoitami]

04:50 PM on 03/15/2011

I'm referring to the sentence "We found this 1947 video on the process ..." Doesn't make sense to refer to it as a video from 1947.

[deepintheheartoftejas]

10:14 PM on 03/15/2011

The word "video" predates videotape by several decades. In fact, motion picture film was sometimes called "video film", to distinguish it from still photography film.