@ your library (R) ......by Paige Turner November 11, 2004

How many years have you been reading books? Have you ever noticed that most hardcover books have checkered cloth as part of their bindings on both top and bottom? Take a look at the hardback books you have at home and then come check out those on the shelves @ your library (R).

The "cloth" is actually called the "headband" and was originally a cord or cloth tape with colored thread or string tightly wound around it. The headband was an integral part of the binding structure in early forms of the "codex" book. The codex has been with us for nearly two thousand years and is the physical form of the book we are all familiar with today. Prior to the codex, books were in the form of a papyrus roll.

In early examples of the codex, the thread winding around the cord actually pierced through into the folded "signatures" (grouping of pages) of the book's "text block" (the finished sewn gathering of the signatures). The cord itself was tied to the edges of the binding's casing at the head (upper) and tail (lower) of the spine, and as such, provided a great deal of structural strength to the binding.
Some historians have suggested that a later and more cosmetic function of the headband was to hide from view the internal casing material of the binding's spine. Early Western books were part and parcel of a pervasive religious world view and any visually displeasing structural imperfections were hidden or disguised with decoration. Long after original intent, traditional practices remain in place.
Historians also theorized that the headband might have originally served as a buffer to support the spine at its vulnerable edges since we tend to pull books from a shelf by yanking on the top of the spine and pulling it backwards, placing obvious stress on the cover. However, this theory was dismissed since the codex book (for more than one thousand years of its existence) was designed to lie flat, not upright. You see, bookshelves didn't exist and most books were too heavy and cumbersome to stand upright.
With the development of commercial bookbinding production during the Industrial Revolution, the headband became less structurally important and was merely attached to the edges of the text block rather than sewn into it. Today the headband serves a purely decorative purpose and is now most often a thin strip of colored or patterned cloth glued to the edge of the spine.
TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What rock musician said, "When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully -- the church which belongs to God, and the public library which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer."

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S QUESTION: It was comedian Drew Carey who said "I used to go to the library all the time when I was a kid. As a teenager, I got a book on how to write jokes at the library, and that, in turn, launched my comedy career." Carey appeared on "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" and announced that all of his winnings would go to Ohio public libraries. He donated nearly $600,000 to the Ohio Library Council.