Oversewn bindings are a type of bookbinding produced by sewing together loose leaves of paper to form a text block.
He was a skilled salesman, but historians suggest Chivers was overly focused on financial gain to the disregard of standards and specifications like the Committee on Leather for Bookbinding.
[4] In 1920, W. Elmo Reavis, a bookbinder from Los Angeles, invented an oversewing machine, and began selling it to American libraries.
In 1967, Matt Roberts, chief of the circulation department of the Washington University Libraries, first documented the drawbacks of oversewn bindings.
Even Cedric Chivers admitted, in 1925, These methods were the best which at that time could be contrived, but presently complaints began to be made as to the durability of some of my bindings.
Indeed I [now] frequently lose contracts for Library binding because of my refusal to follow the instructions of a specification which under other conditions I personally drew up.