Introduction

I don’t know if I am qualified to write a blog since I have never read one. What do you get from these blogs? The internet is an open sewer with anyone spouting off the first thing that comes into their head. So why not me?

I am a part owner in a company that sells graphic arts finishing equipment. The plain term is bindery equipment. My father, Norton Spiel, has always called the bindery industry the step child of the printing industry. Most of you out there feel that way. You all drool over your new digital presses and your sexy software. Walk into a shop and you will see that the pre-press department looks like the Starship Enterprise and the bindery department looks like the boiler room on the Titanic—twenty years ago!

I know bindery isn’t sexy but think about this: If you do not have call to bind books any longer you are going to have to find another job. Everything prior to the bindery can be done electronically. So if you have any love for paper or books, respect your bindery department! Besides, if you screw up a job during pre-press or on press, it can be caught and stopped. If you make your mistake in bindery, you just paid for the whole job yourself.

Rodney Dangerfield should have been a bindery equipment salesman. So the next time you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for pre-press or a million dollars for a press, save some crumbs for the bindery department or you may find yourself working in a paperless shop.