Library Bindery

In the 1902-03 Library Committee Minutes, the Librarian reports that a guillotine, "a machine much wanted in the Binder's department", had recently come on to the market in connection with the sale of a printer's stock. It was purchased at auction at a cost of £7.

This picture of the bindery shows the guillotine in the foreground and although it still survives in the Library, it is no longer used. The guillotine features the stamp of J. Greig and Sons Edinburgh, an engineering company based at Fountainbridge, Edinburgh which built machines for the printing, bookbinding and lithographic trades.

Other bindery artefacts which still survive including this wooden sewing frame which was used to stitch the pages of a book together before its covers were glued in position.

Even the Bindery clock, supplied by local company James Hardy and Co., still has a home in the Central Library today.

Aberdeen Central Library