1 00:00:00,530 --> 00:00:01,530 Books! 2 00:00:01,530 --> 00:00:03,889 They’re like YouTube videos you can hold. 3 00:00:03,889 --> 00:00:07,140 And while most books are built to be read a small handful of times and then retire to 4 00:00:07,140 --> 00:00:11,670 your shelf to make you seem like an intellectual, there’s an elite fighting class of books 5 00:00:11,670 --> 00:00:12,990 built different. 6 00:00:12,990 --> 00:00:15,879 If you’ve ever gone to the part of the library where everything looks like a Google image 7 00:00:15,879 --> 00:00:19,160 search result for “book,” you’ve seen it. 8 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:20,830 Yep, these guys. 9 00:00:20,830 --> 00:00:25,630 They’re “library-bound,” built to last hundreds of years according to an exacting, 10 00:00:25,630 --> 00:00:28,670 39-page-long technical standard, the name of which I’m putting on screen because if 11 00:00:28,670 --> 00:00:31,480 I read it out loud, this video would be 45 minutes long. 12 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:35,100 Now, this is not to say that every book in every library is made to outlive you—lots 13 00:00:35,100 --> 00:00:39,210 of them are just off-the-shelf Barnes & Normals that get used up until they fall apart. 14 00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:43,280 But there is a good reason for keeping high-use reference books—and, frankly, as much of 15 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:46,530 the catalog as the library can afford—in this format. 16 00:00:46,530 --> 00:00:48,250 Because think about your favorite book. 17 00:00:48,250 --> 00:00:52,370 How many times have you or people you lent it to actually sat down and read it? 18 00:00:52,370 --> 00:00:56,210 Assuming you didn’t pick a picture book—which I’m realizing now is unlikely—I’d guess 19 00:00:56,210 --> 00:00:58,120 that number is in the single-digits. 20 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:02,950 Library books, on the other hand, get checked out, flipped through, bent back, photocopied, 21 00:01:02,950 --> 00:01:07,250 spilled on, and who-knows-what-else by unknown numbers of people for as long as they can 22 00:01:07,250 --> 00:01:08,250 take it. 23 00:01:08,250 --> 00:01:12,010 By one estimate, a commercially bound book could survive about ten library circulations 24 00:01:12,010 --> 00:01:16,160 before it started taking on meaningful damage, which is cool, but the goal for a library 25 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:18,680 book is to handle over a hundred. 26 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:22,800 So libraries have a choice: watch commercially bound ones deteriorate until it’s time to 27 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:28,090 repair or recycle, or invest in ones that can take decades, or even centuries, of beatings. 28 00:01:28,090 --> 00:01:30,829 That’s what library binding is for. 29 00:01:30,829 --> 00:01:35,259 The Standard dates back to 1923, and a group of school librarians who were sick of watching 30 00:01:35,259 --> 00:01:36,280 their books fall apart. 31 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,390 They established the first standard, and in the century since, it’s evolved with changing 32 00:01:40,390 --> 00:01:42,470 technology and priorities. 33 00:01:42,470 --> 00:01:47,410 This is the current version, adopted in 2000: “The,” capital-S, “Standard” because 34 00:01:47,410 --> 00:01:49,979 again, I’m not saying all that. 35 00:01:49,979 --> 00:01:52,130 But here’s what it means. 36 00:01:52,130 --> 00:01:54,250 The Standard, as written, is 39 pages long. 37 00:01:54,250 --> 00:01:58,289 Page fourteen is blank, all these pages are just names, but the rest are an incredibly 38 00:01:58,289 --> 00:02:02,540 detailed accounting of what materials to use and how exactly to use them to make a book 39 00:02:02,540 --> 00:02:04,640 strong enough to withstand the general public. 40 00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:08,550 But we don’t just wanna tell you about what’s in there, we wanna show you. 41 00:02:08,550 --> 00:02:12,200 That’s why I sent my Outside Correspondent Amy outside to find someone who could show 42 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:14,330 her how to library-bind a book. 43 00:02:14,330 --> 00:02:17,730 Familiar with the long-standing company policy that bad outside correspondents don’t get 44 00:02:17,730 --> 00:02:26,660 health insurance, she contacted tons of bookbinders, including a guy named Bookbinder, but he never 45 00:02:26,660 --> 00:02:27,810 responded. 46 00:02:27,810 --> 00:02:32,860 Luckily, a friendly but camera-shy New York City bookbinder let her visit his shop and 47 00:02:32,860 --> 00:02:35,020 its many piles of materials. 48 00:02:35,020 --> 00:02:39,800 These things are the backbone—pardon me, the spine—of the entire operation: the materials 49 00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:42,819 themselves provide a lot of a library bind’s strength. 50 00:02:42,819 --> 00:02:46,660 That’s why there are written rules for everything from the paper, to the cover fabric, to the 51 00:02:46,660 --> 00:02:50,580 boards in the covers, to the ink, the glue, the foil, and the thread sewing the pages. 52 00:02:50,580 --> 00:02:53,710 The glue alone takes up a page and a half. 53 00:02:53,710 --> 00:02:56,860 Every material approved in the Standard has stood up to rigorous testing. 54 00:02:56,860 --> 00:03:00,760 So Grade F Buckram, probably the strongest option for a book cover, has proven to be 55 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:05,710 resistant to abrasion, breakage, color loss, oil stains, mildew, water, and stank. 56 00:03:05,710 --> 00:03:10,050 Papers are beholden to standards of weight, tear resistance, and bursting strength—whatever 57 00:03:10,050 --> 00:03:13,850 that is—and lettering foil has to prove it won’t visibly change at all if left at 58 00:03:13,850 --> 00:03:18,410 a 158-degree-Fahrenheit or 70-degree-Celsius dry heat for ten days. 59 00:03:18,410 --> 00:03:22,690 Which is crazy, because if you spent ten days at 158 degrees, not only would you lose some 60 00:03:22,690 --> 00:03:25,250 of your shine or whatever, you would die. 61 00:03:25,250 --> 00:03:29,300 So if you’re looking at a career in being foil lettering on a library book, sorry kid, 62 00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:30,580 you don’t cut it. 63 00:03:30,580 --> 00:03:34,470 Amy’s new bookbinder friend inexplicably kept handing her scrap materials to take home, 64 00:03:34,470 --> 00:03:37,299 which meant she got to give a go to the fun part: binding. 65 00:03:37,299 --> 00:03:40,840 There are four acceptable methods of assembling pages together. 66 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:43,709 “Sewing through the fold” is pretty self-explanatory. 67 00:03:43,709 --> 00:03:46,610 The book consists of stacks of paper, folded in half. 68 00:03:46,610 --> 00:03:50,200 You pop holes through the crease of that fold, between a quarter of an inch and one and a 69 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,821 half inches apart, then sew through the folded stacks one at a time, attaching each one to 70 00:03:53,821 --> 00:03:55,500 the previous one at the end. 71 00:03:55,500 --> 00:03:59,680 You can do this by hand or by machine, and if you do it by machine, you need to use, 72 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:01,689 “as many needles as possible.” 73 00:04:01,689 --> 00:04:05,930 Then there’s “oversewing,” which is similar, but instead of going through folded 74 00:04:05,930 --> 00:04:08,010 pages, you’re going through piles of loose-leaf. 75 00:04:08,010 --> 00:04:11,920 So you sew mini-stacks to themselves, and then to each other, and your thread should 76 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:13,120 be covered with glue. 77 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:16,420 You can do this by hand, or ask this machine to do it… and we’d love to show you that 78 00:04:16,420 --> 00:04:20,720 thing at work, but when Amy asked the bookbinder about it, he said that machine was “having 79 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:21,829 a bad week.” 80 00:04:21,829 --> 00:04:24,910 Your next two options are only allowed if you’re making a smaller book. 81 00:04:24,910 --> 00:04:29,110 For one less than two inches thick, you can do “double-fan adhesive binding,” where 82 00:04:29,110 --> 00:04:33,190 you clamp a stack of pages, notch them, and load them up with glue in a very specific 83 00:04:33,190 --> 00:04:34,190 way. 84 00:04:34,190 --> 00:04:37,420 Also, you have to let it air dry, because patience is a virtue. 85 00:04:37,420 --> 00:04:41,050 If you have an even pee-wee-er book, less than half an inch thick, you can just sew 86 00:04:41,050 --> 00:04:43,200 the whole book through the side in a single pass. 87 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,000 There are still rules, of course, you have to use a particular type of stitch, and the 88 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,730 stitches have to be half an inch—or 13 millimeters—long. 89 00:04:49,730 --> 00:04:54,949 Amy did, um, her best at sewing through the fold, and it looks… yeah, like she did her 90 00:04:54,949 --> 00:04:56,199 best. 91 00:04:56,199 --> 00:04:59,330 Once your pages are assembled, it’s time to trim all the edges so they’re smooth 92 00:04:59,330 --> 00:05:03,600 and square, glue on the spine, build the front and back covers, attach them to the pages, 93 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:05,850 and stamp in the title, perhaps with one of these. 94 00:05:05,850 --> 00:05:10,750 Or, if you have gold foil but no that, you can try cheating and hope nobody notices. 95 00:05:10,750 --> 00:05:15,389 Each of those processes comes with, of course, extremely specific guidelines, down to how 96 00:05:15,389 --> 00:05:18,009 you’re supposed to fold the cover fabric around the edges. 97 00:05:18,009 --> 00:05:20,730 And at the end of it all: voila! 98 00:05:20,730 --> 00:05:21,730 Book! 99 00:05:21,730 --> 00:05:24,400 Way more time and money than a normal book, but this thing is going to handle just about 100 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:29,229 anything life—or the general population—throws at it. 101 00:05:29,229 --> 00:05:33,470 Now look, I like books as much as the next guy, and sturdily bound ones as much as the 102 00:05:33,470 --> 00:05:34,470 guy next to him. 103 00:05:34,470 --> 00:05:38,090 But I have to admit that when it comes to learning new things, especially math-y, science-y 104 00:05:38,090 --> 00:05:40,350 things, I can never seem to do it from a book. 105 00:05:40,350 --> 00:05:42,509 I could barely even do it in school. 106 00:05:42,509 --> 00:05:48,639 For me, the absolute best way to learn that kind of stuff is this video’s sponsor: Brilliant.org. 107 00:05:48,639 --> 00:05:52,919 Brilliant has thousands of lessons—from fundamentals like algebra and Python basics, 108 00:05:52,919 --> 00:05:56,449 to the kinds of complex topics I thought I’d never understand, like the large language 109 00:05:56,449 --> 00:05:59,900 models that power stuff like ChatGPT, or the physics of airplanes. 110 00:05:59,900 --> 00:06:03,410 So whether you’re trying to pass some math class this semester, or just trying to get 111 00:06:03,410 --> 00:06:08,170 a deeper understanding of the world around you, Brilliant offers a super chill, intuitive, 112 00:06:08,170 --> 00:06:09,660 interactive way to do it. 113 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:13,790 You can go at your own pace with fun little lessons that break everything down into understandable 114 00:06:13,790 --> 00:06:17,789 parts and each take fifteen minutes or less, making Brilliant the perfect thing for all 115 00:06:17,789 --> 00:06:21,910 those weird chunks of the day between trains, or before your friend shows up, or while your 116 00:06:21,910 --> 00:06:24,580 canned cinnamon rolls are in the oven, or whatever. 117 00:06:24,580 --> 00:06:27,479 Goodbye doomscrolling, hello understanding how GPS works. 118 00:06:27,479 --> 00:06:31,240 If that sounds good to you, try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 119 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:36,099 30 days, by visiting brilliant.org/hai or clicking on the link in the description. 120 00:06:36,099 --> 00:06:40,910 The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription, and you’ll 121 00:06:40,910 --> 00:06:42,860 be supporting this channel at the same time.