Harvard University Press

[Lubrifex]

Health to all.

I set myself to collecting many harcover book series from HUP, mainly from Loeb Classical Library, and through these years I have learned much from bookmaking and I cannot believe the number of poorly made hardcover books sold at always increasing high prices.
From this LCL series I have books printed and bound mainly from Edward Brothers and from Maple Veil and they are plagued with glue excess. Many book signatures I need to force separate leaving horrible glue scars on pages. Spines (which often are very soft and cannot keep a decent curve) frequently are mostly glued to the book block. Book blocks are rarely glued centered on the hardcover or at right angles. Awful.
Besides binding these and many other books are printed with oscillating levels of ink resulting in alternated pages with normal level of ink with either too much or too faint level of ink.
I have tried for years speaking with HUP and Maple Veil, but they do not seem to answer for their incompetence.

What do you think about these faults? And what sort of (consumer) authorities could urge these presses to do a decent work?

 

[AirSource1]

The standards are at an incline for a while and I get what you're saying, but I don't think there's anything we can do to change this. It's frustrating, but I guess we have to live it it

 

[jeff_d_hermit]

I've seen similar issues with glue heavy bindings and uneven ink in hardcover series, unfortunately, publishers often don't prioritize quality, and consumer agencies usually won't step in for binding problems

 

[thebindingthread]

Yeah, I hear you. It's a bummer when it feels like things are getting harder and your hands are tied. And don't even get me started on books with terrible glue and spotty ink, it's like some publishers just don't care about quality. We're just left dealing with it