"Library bound" books--I have questions

Factual Questions
1

I understand that a library binding is when they take a paperback and make it into a hardback. I have questions:

  1. How is this done?
  2. Who does it?
  3. What does it cost?
2

Quick answers until someone more knowledgeable comes along:

  1. Basically, shave the spine off the book, either removing it (previously-bound hardcover) or chopping it off. You get a big stack of pages, which are then sewn into smaller bundles, which are then all sewn together and glued, through various cloth/paper setups, into the actual case itself.
  2. Depending on the book and/or budget of the library, it can be done in-house by a technical services or archival librarian, or shipments of books to be rebound can be sent out to a specialized commercial binding company.
  3. No clue, sorry.
3

I can take a whack at questions 1 and 2. A hardback cover is made as follows: binder’s boards (basically stiff, acid-free cardboard) are wrapped on the outside in some kind of durable cloth, then the cover is attached to the outside of the first and last sheets of paper of the book’s bound innards, and to the spine. With books that are manufactured as hardbound books, the cover is glued to the paper and either glued or sewn to the spine. Library bindings use glue for everything and often a specific type of cloth cover called buckram – it is super durable and resists water. I can’t confirm it, but when it comes to rebinding paperbacks I imagine that they just glue the clothbound hard cover onto the original paper cover of the paperback.

As to the second question, I went to grad school at a huge school in the Midwest, and the library there had its own binding department. In the academic libraries I’ve been in, one finds past years of journals or periodicals have been bound together with buckram to make them more durable and keep them gathered together.

But I have no idea what it costs.

ETA: whoa, simulpost.

4

It’s pretty easy to do. I did my first book binding just from carefully taking a book apart and seeing how it was put together. Since then I’ve taken a couple classes on other methods. I’m sure there are a ton of hobby sites on the web.