Knygrišyklos tarpukario Kaune: procesai ir įtakos.

The paper analyses the work of Kaunas bookbinding studios during the Interwar period. The research resulted in a large amount of archival data on the identities of the bookbinders from that time, as well as their professional qualifications, capacities, work management, level of mechanization, services on offer, materials used, product prices and requests from clients. The research aimed to reveal the differences between the industrial, custom high-street and custom artisan bookbinding. However it turned out that they were all closely intertwined. The analysis of the documented bookbinding equipment in various workshops has shown that the process of mechanization was rather slow, and that even the mass production was dominated by manual work. Back then, many books would leave the printing presses soft covered, and authors themselves often had to personally seek out the bookbinders for more durable book covers. Back then Kaunas had several types of bookbinding studios: industrial printing house bookbinders, private bookbinding businesses, and individual artisans. However all these types of workshops were able to provide the same range of services -- from mass productions to one-off books, both normal and artist editions. For instance, printing house bookbinders would not only take care of the mass production but also accept individual orders, even for one-off prints. Furthermore, all bookbinding studios were not only binding books (and documents) but also producing folders, photo albums and greeting cards, as well as padding the maps and charts with fabric and offering book 'restoration' services. Although Kaunas had no bookbinding school, many artistic bookbinding experts knowledgeable of the many intricacies of the craft. The craft of bookbinding often intertwined with leather decoration business -- the latter also used the same materials and offered products such as photo albums and notebooks. The Interwar leather processing and bookbinding industries were highly influenced by "Šatrija", a bookbinding company which had the Estonian expert Aksel Karing workin under their employ. He introduced some artistic and technical innovations of leather processing, thus significantly popularising this trade. The research concludes that the Lithuanian artistic bookbinding has been influenced by the Estonian school much earlier than it was thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]