I denounce them! (thinks to self: much good that will do…)
They produce very good modern foreign language dictionaries, but the book binding sucks. I’ve only had my German dictionary for about 2 years and the hard cover is getting loose and starting to rip apart. I just recieved my French dictionary and it’s in worse condition that my German dictionary. Unfortunately, it wasn’t shipped very well. No fun bubble wrap or anything of the sort. I don’t know if I should add glue between the spine and the hard cover or not. It might make opening the book awkward. My dictionary will be skinless in a few years. This might be a modern practice because I remember the Oxford Latin Dictionary at my library had the same unglued spine problem as well… I don’t know much about book manufacturing, but using glued front and back page covers to hold the hard cover together is a ridiculous profit solution. Are they really saving glue? Why not just use paper back instead of a flimsily attached hard cover? Or why not make the hard cover thinner?
I don’t know if Collins Robert is related to Harper Collins. My Collins Robert Unabridged Fr-Eng dictionary has held up quite well over the years, and it’s quite a big/heavy book.
I have a number of hardcover dictionaries but haven’t used them in a long long time so the spines are in great condition… but that’s because I’ve got dictonary software on my computer and it is just so much faster to do searches this way.
I have an old hard cover Webster which isn’t doing so well but that’s only because I use it mostly to prop up my laptop on the coffee table. My newer copy of Webster is doing very well because I never use it, since I have the equivalent installed on my computer.
My peeve is dictionary software that requires the CD in the drive. Le Robert is like that. Grrr…
And hands up those who have really old books (produced over 100 years ago) still looking pretty good, binding still intact, paper staying in good condition; and can compare them to their modern textbooks - spine breaking up, cover falling off, paper deteriorating badly. And what really irritates me is that my old books were usually cheaper to buy than the new ones!
I must say that my old Valpy Homer is looking a bit sad, I bought it like that, but it looks like it survived a major earthquake (probably just a long sea voyage to Australia back in the 1800’s). But I wonder how many of my new books would last as long under those conditions.
(PS - I’m having trouble with our computers this morning - so apologies if this posts twice)
