Binding waste is damaged, misprinted, or surplus paper or

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...

reused in

bookbinding Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers alon ...

. Whether as whole sheets or fragments ('' disjecta membra''), these may be used as the exterior binding, as the endpapers, or as a reinforcement beneath the spine. Especially in medieval and early modern bookbinding, it was common to use discarded or defective sheets to reinforce bindings, even if they had already been used for writing or printing. This practice has led to the survival of texts which may otherwise have been lost. Binding waste can also help to provide a date, and in some cases a location, for the manuscript or printed texts which it accompanies. For example, a fragment of a handwritten letter to 'Mrs Shakspaire' was found in 1978 in Hereford Cathedral Library, bound inside a book printed in 1608 by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's associate Richard Field. Binder's waste, derived from discarded books, has been distinguished from 'printer's waste' (

proof Proof most often refers to: * Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition * Alcohol proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink's strength Proof may also refer to: Mathematics and formal logic * Formal proof, a co ...

s and misprinted sheets) and 'bookseller's waste'.Joseph A. Dane
'Printer's Waste/Binding Waste'
''The Myth of Print Culture: Essays on Evidence, Textuality, and Bibliographical Method'' (University of Toronto Press, 2003), page 61. GC55 H2798 586d

See also

References

Further reading