Simon Barr in the "Peithologian Society"

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What is the Peithologian Society ?

"The 🌐Peithologian Society was an undergraduate debate society at Columbia University. It was founded in 1806, four years after Columbia's first literary society, the 🌐Philolexian Society , by freshmen who were disenfranchised by Philolexian's requirement that its members be upperclassmen. Its emphasis on debate, composition, and rhetoric was similar to Philo's literary aims, and the two societies shared other superficial characteristics as well. Philo adopted light blue as its official color, while Peithologian adopted white (Columbia later appropriated the two hues as its own official school colors). Whereas Philolexian's symbol was a rising sun, Peithologian's was a star. Its Latin motto was "Vitam Impendere Vero" meaning, roughly, "To devote one's life to truth." "

What is the Philolexian Society ?

"The 🌐Philolexian Society of Columbia University is one of the oldest college literary and debate societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia. Founded in 1802, the Society aims to "improve its members in Oratory, Composition and Forensic Discussion." The name Philolexia is Greek for "love of discourse," and the society's motto is the Latin word Surgam, meaning "I shall rise." The society traces its roots to a literary society founded by Alexander Hamilton in the 1770s.

Philolexian (known to members as "Philo," pronounced with a long "i") has been called the "oldest thing at Columbia except the College itself," and it has been an integral part of Columbia from the beginning, providing the institution with everything from its colors, Philolexian Blue (along with White, from her long-dispatched rival 🌐 Peithologian Society), to some of its most solemn traditions and many of its most noted graduates. Members are admitted after a highly selective evaluation process and are sworn to secrecy thereafter. "

When the New Deal organized American industry under the National Recovery A c t (NRA) in 1934, library bookbinders began a cooperative program to insure standards of quality and fair dealing that has continued for fifty years. Library bookbinding in 1934 was a considerably different affair than it is currently. A host of small shops dominated an industry with very few "giants“ and no consistent definition of what it was that was being sold as "library binding.” Individual binders dealt with individual librarians without the benefit of broader consultation about standards and prices for their services. Cost accounting varied tremendously across the indus‐ try, making pricing of bindery services exceedingly difficult. Wide variations in labor practices further destabilized a market already hard-hit by the Depression.

Barr is influential in creating LBI

Into this scene came the faceless federal bureaucracy of the NRA National Code Authority ‐ with a difference in the person of Pelham Barr. Barr had started his professional life as a chemist, politically active and committed to the goals of the New Deal. With the inauguration of the NRA in February 1934, a Book Manufacturing Institute was established, and Barr was appointed Divisional Director for Library Binding.He immediately set about applying Code provisions for self-government, labor standards, and fair competition across the industry. By November of that year, Barr was planning to extend his duties to include promotional activities for the industry as a whole, undertaken at the expense of divisional member binders.

COOPERATION.. .STANDARDS. . .COMMUNICATION.. .are focal points of this brief history of The Library Binding Institute written by Brian J. Mulhern. Mulhern (BA in history and English, Carle‐ ton College, Northfield, Minnesota, and an Main American Studies, University of Minnesota) is an archivist and writer who worked part time for LEI for several months. He began organizing the old LBI files and setting up the archives.

When the New Deal organized American industry under the National Recovery A c t (NRA) in 1934, l i b r a r y bookbinders began a cooperative program to insure standards of quality and fair dealing that has continued for fifty years. Library bookbinding in 1934 was a considerably different affair than it is currently. A host of small shops dominated an industry with very few "giants“ and no consistent definition of what it was that was being sold as "library binding.” Individual binders dealt with individual librarians without the benefit of broader consultation about standards and prices for their services. Cost accounting varied tremendously across the indus‐ try, making pricing of bindery services exceedingly difficult. Wide variations in labor practices further destabilized a market already hard-hit by the Depression.

Barr is influential in creating LBI

Into this scene came the faceless federal bureaucracy of the NRA National Code Authority ‐ with a difference in the person of Pelham Barr. Barr had started his professional life as a chemist, politically active and committed to the goals of the New Deal. With the inauguration of the NRA in February 1934, a Book Manufacturing Institute was established, and Barr was appointed Divisional Director for Library Binding.He immediately set about applying Code provisions for self-government, labor standards, and fair competition across the industry. By November of that year, Barr was planning to extend his duties to include promotional activities for the industry as a whole, undertaken at the expense of divisional member binders.

These activities won the enthusiastic support of the depression-stricken industry. When the NRA was declared unconstitutional in May 1935, members of_the previously involuntary federal program voluntarily resolved to continue the program on an independent basis with Barr at i t s head. At the hour of decision, Barr enthusiastically anticipated the binders' choices:

Library binders a l l over the country are continuing to do business ”as was" before the decision. They realize that it is the only safe and sane way to do i t . They didn't have to be told that it would be plain damn-foolishness-‐suicide--to t r y to go back to the old days when some of their competitors indulged in price‐wars, quality chiselling and labor sweating. . .Here's one case where cooperation and selfishness are identical--broad vision is right at the end of the pocket-book nerve.

Joint Committee Plays Major Role

Even before the group became an independent entity, a program of cooperation had been undertaken with the American Library Association's Bookbinding Committee founded in 1933. In January 1935, three binders were delegated to meet with the ALA in what subsequently became known as “the Joint Com‐mittee." Cooperation with librarians became a keystone of the new organization's policy. The Joint Committee consulted on virtually a l l facets of the LEI program. It played a major role in shaping binders' "Guide to Fair Value,“ (1934), their "Minimum Specifications for Class 'A' Library Binding" (June 1934, revised June, 1938) and their "Certification Plan” (1936). For twenty years following LBI's first annual meeting in 1936, i t s annual get-togethers were planned to coincide in a joint session with the annual meeting of the ALA.

The relationship with the ALA focused LBI's public relations effort on the Library Journal, and for years Pelham Barr provided the Journal with a steady stream of contributions interpreting bindery services and activities. After September 1939, the Institute launched a publication of its own, Book Life, specifically directed at bibliophiles and persons interested in book conservation, another early concern of the bindery group. Barr particularly excelled at these public relations efforts, and he valued them so highly that he donated a portion of his own 1939 salary raise so that his long-standing dream of such a publication might become a reality. LBI's first director also contributed to a wider spectrum of publications, including Bookbinding Magazine, College and Research Libraries, and Bookbinding_ggg Book Production, as well as generating a steady stream of informal and entertaining communications with LEI-members and other interested people. From the fi r s t , open communications have played a central role in the affairs of the bindery group.

Gathering statistical information was important

Information flowed in both directions from the earliest days of LBI. An important function of the Institute was the collection of statistical information regarding the industry: i t s volume, i t s suppliers, i t s income, and i t s expenditures. Annual surveys were made of such information, and occasional special surveys were held regarding issues of widespread interest. Reciprocally survey findings were shared with mem‐ bers to assist them in planning and evaluating their own operations; and the Institute also served occasionally as a conduit for statistical data compiled by the federal govern‐ ment regarding the binding industry.

To be sure, services to members were not purely statistical. LBI organized members to resist incursions of New Deal work-projects on the binding trade. It disseminated preservation information to members hard-hit by a series of disastrous floods in the late 1930s. With the coming of war in 1941, it kept members posted on coping with shortages of bindery materials, brought on by war-time conditions.

Over the years it interpreted f o r members a host of new federal regulations and legislation. Regular newsletters to members appeared as early as 1935, and LBI annual meetings began in 1936, featuring management and technical sessions to upgrade members s k i l l s in business and production procedures. Given the range of services to members, it is surprising that the fledgling group was able to maintain relatively low dues and to stay within a modest budget in the midst of a lengthy business recession that cut heavily into member‐ binders' incomes. But the industry stalwartly supported i t s trade association, which in turn responded with some flexibility to the financial plight of individual members. Balanced budgets were to become a tradition in succeeding years. T o ‐ gether, the industry weathered the most harrowing business downturn in American history.

Prices and Products Standardized

Meanwhile they went about systematizing t h e i r mode of doing business. To stabilize binding prices, they developed a "Guide of Fair Value for Library Binding” while s t i l l under NRA jurisdiction. The guide was approved by the Joint Committee and ratified by the newly independent Institute after it formed. Periodic revisions in May 1937, October1941, December 1943, August 1945, attempted to keep pace with and personnel costs. In the words of the first announcement for the guide:

The approval of the Guide of Fair Value and of the Minimum Specifications is an important element in the cooperative program of the Joint Committee to develop sound relations between librarians and binders--to put transactions on a basis of fair dealing and fair competition; to assure librarians of a good quality binding at a fair price which will enable the binder to use standard quality materials, give good workmanship and pay his employees fair wages.

Besides standardizing their prices, binders sought to standardize their products. Initially, product standardization took the form of production specifications enumerating various features of the binding process that were deemed to constitute binding particularly suited for library use. The first “Mini‐ mum Specifications for Class 'A1 Library Binding" were formulated by the ALA Bookbinding Committee in 1934 as the culmi‐ nation of a consensus emerging in the trade since at least 1923. The Joint Committee ratified this consensus in 1935 and revised it in 1938. chiefly to accommodate the growing use of pyroxylin‐impregnated fabrics in library binding. The original specifications referred to books and magazines. By January 1938, the group had adapted i t s standard to the binding of newspapers. The following year it issued specifications to govern the binding of “reinforced (pre‐library-bound) new books."

To reinforce the legitimacy of these standards LBI issued a certification plan in 1936 f o r binders who demonstrated work in conformity to both the minimum specifications and the guide to fair dealing. At least initially certification was not made a prerequisite f o r membership in the association. A July 1936 letter from Pelham Barr reassured non-certified members that their membership was not in jeopardy under the new certification plan, and this dispensation apparently prevailed for several years thereafter. A board of review was convened in connection with the plan to monitor applications for certified status.

LBI supplies technical advice to members

LBI began early to offer members technical advice in order to help them conform to the prescribed specifications. Pyroxylin was evaluated in 1936. Buckram was repeatedly tested f o r resistance to moisture and abrasion by the early 1940s. Beginning in 1936, both members and librarians were advised on precautions regarding mildew. A series of bulletins issued in-l94l-l942 advised members on how to meet production standards in the midst of war-time supply shortages. Such piecemeal tinkering with production specifications would continue until the early 19608 when heightened technical capabilities made possible the develop‐ ment of performance standards to supplement these production specifications. Since that time Institute standards have been defined increasingly in terms of durability under a wide variety of environmental conditions. Empirical testing has yielded a progress‐ ively more sophisticated specification of library binding. The 1976 inauguration of an LBI book-testing laboratory at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is merely the most recent phase in the binders' effort to refine and certify the standard of quality in their field.

The standards program, along with membership services, and a concerted public relations campaign with librarians define the earliest phase of LBI's existence, roughly coterminous with the directorship of Pelham Barr. Barr tirelessly pursued these efforts until his health broke down in 1947, and he died early in the following year.

Brownning becomes Executive Director

Binders next turned to a librarian, Earl W. Browning, to head their organization. Browning, formerly of the Peoria Public Library, had been a member of the Joint Committee during i t s earliest years, 1934-1937. His administrative skills, contacts with librarians, and long-standing interest in library bookbinding particularly recommended him to LBI directors seeking a new leader.

In fact, Browning's tenure as LBI Executive Director appears in retrospect as little more than an interregnum. Within four and one-half years of becoming LBI director in April 1948, Browning had resigned. While director, he concentrated his energies on representing librarians' interest in library bookbinding. Browning's program for membership I.D. cards and the use of LBI insignia in advertising were cal‐ culated to assist librarians searching for quality binding. He dispensed with restrictions barring librarians from the technical sessions at LBI annual meetings. Technicalities subsequently discussed tended more to benefit librarians than binders in attendance at the meeting. Browning enthusiastically toured the circuit of library meetings with his exhibit on the use of standardized lettering in binding, and he filled LBI newsletters with reports of his attendance at such gather‐ ings. A major publication of the Browning years, the Librar Binding Manual (1951), was actually published by the American Library Association and addressed itself chiefly to a library audience. It constituted a sort of primer for buyers of library binding. Originally co‐authored by Louis N. Feipel and Earl w. Browning, the manual was revised and expanded over the years, culminating in Maurice Tauber's 1971 revision published by LEI.

Other significant publications of the Browning years were more geared to the needs of LEI-member binders. During 1951-1952, l e g a l memoranda on wage and salary stabilization equipped members to comply w i t h t h e Defense Production Act of 1950,inspired by the outbreak of hostilities in Korea. These memoranda reflect the growing importance to the organization of a l e g a l acumen beyond the ken of Browning, and he resigned and moved to California in September 1952, following the death of his wife.