Sebastopol, CA--Lay-flat bindings are back. Readers of O'Reilly & Associates' books will once again be able to plop their book next to a terminal or on a cafe table and be sure that it will stay open to the page they're perusing. O'Reilly is reinstating the RepKover binding, which allows the interior of a book to "float" free from its cover. More durable and flexible than a traditional perfect binding, the RepKover binding allows the interior of a book to lay flat when open.
O'Reilly books featuring RepKover bindings will start appearing in bookstores immediately. Going forward, all new books will be produced with the much-loved lay-flat binding (except for books that are too thin or thick for the RepKover process).
"Our printers, Malloy and Courier, have been true partners with us in this endeavor," said Sue Willing, O'Reilly's Manufacturing Manager. "In September 2001, after using RepKover binding for almost a decade, O'Reilly had to make the difficult decision to suspend the use of lay-flat binding as a cost-saving measure. We promised our customers we'd resume using RepKover, and because of our printing partners' creativity and flexibility, we're now able to keep that promise without raising the price of our books."
"In order to best serve O'Reilly's requirements," said Joe Upton, whose family owns Malloy, "we purchased a RepKover machine in 1992, one of the first in the U.S. I'm not sure if we would have ever purchased our RepKover equipment had lay-flat binding not been a critical need of O'Reilly."
"If we weren't able to offer RepKover to O'Reilly back in 1999, we never would have made it onto their approved vendor list. Luckily, we had purchased our RepKover binder in 1994," said Tom Connell of Courier Corporation.
The RepKover logo appears on the copyright page of all O'Reilly books produced with the lay-flat binding.
About O’Reilly
O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.