Early Years / Start of Prebinding / Binding Standards / Second Generation / End of Rebinding / Growth of School Libraries / Turn of the Century

End of Rebinding

The postwar baby boom brought an increasing number of children into public schools and the need for prebound library books grew accordingly. Deciding to concentrate on prebound books, Lawrence D. Sibert talked with two other library binders, Lawrence Hertzberg of Monastery Hill Bindery in Chicago and Ernest Hertzberg of Hertzberg Craftsmen Bindery in Des Moines Iowa, about forming a new company to combine the rebinding work of all three binderies into one operation.

This was accomplished with the opening of the Hertzberg-New Method Bindery in South Jacksonville, Illinois on June 17, 1954. As planned, the Hertzbergs soon took over ownership and operation of this new rebinding company.

The Siberts continued to concentrate on prebinding at New Method on Kosciusko Street. This prebinding business, particularly the inventory of finished books, quickly grew beyond the capacity of the Kosciusko location. Therefore New Method built a 43,000 square foot building on a single level on the west edge of Jacksonville in 1959. The inventory area was designed so that the order pickers could roller skate the aisles, a practice that is continued today. A special room was also constructed in the new building to house the company's first large IBM computer.

In the mid-1960s, Hertzberg-New Method Bindery started a line of reinforced paperback books, Perma-Bound Books, which would one day compete with Bound to Stay Bound Books in the school library market.
Loading...