Double Take -- by Mark Sproxton

Colin Bate once joked that the only computer chip in his office was in the microwave for heating lunches. Today, the Colin Bate Books binding shop has hardly changed. "A lot of our stuff is still 19th century technology," he said.

Colin Bate lines up some pages to be bound.

Surrounded by paper cutters, gold foiling machines, typesetting machines, and nipping machines (these allow books to dry in a flat, bound fashion), and neatly stacked piles of books, Bate has purposely stuck with traditional methods of binding. "It is the nature of our business because we do a lot of conservation."

In addition to learning how restore and repair old and damaged books, Bate also learned the basics of book binding during a six-year apprenticeship in England in the 1950s. "Work was tight at the time and this one came up," he explained. "I really didn't know what it was. Now I love it. It suits my temperament. I like working with my hands."

Bate, and the others in his shop, who all have art backgrounds, spend their days binding books with small press runs, theses, legal contract books, and books for legal libraries. Binding artists' portfolios will also include finding a unique mix of materials such as leather from West African goats, book board from Holland, sheep skin, or other materials from around the world.

While committed to his craft, Bate recognizes the impact of the computer on the book binding trade. "People will always want books for the foreseeable future," he said. "I'm sure a lot of reference material will be accessed electronically rather than in paper the way it is now."