Whether you work in a small office or a corporate environment, chances are that you use a lot of paper every single day. And usually, that paper isn’t just meeting handouts or printouts — they tend to be big, bound books and guidelines of rules, regulations, and codes.
What most people don’t realize is that printed materials and the process of making them into a book format is a massive industry in the United States. Here’s what you may not have previously know about the print and bookbinding industry:
Some Big Machines Are Involved
In order to mass produce a lot of the reading material that you see and use every day, some pretty big machines need to be used. We’re talking coil binding machines, wire binding machines, automatic paper punching machines — and the list goes on. Imagine: without those machines, we would all be hand binding our books or trying to manage an insurmountable pile of loose pages.
Print is Still Popular
You may be thinking, “Why does this matter if print is dead?” — and how wrong you are. Printed materials are still very relevant, and very popular. Indeed, printed materials are 59% more engaging for users than are online articles, and books of all kinds are still commonly used as power social and educational tools. By no means is print dead — in fact, it is still alive and thriving.
For those worried about the environmental impact of print, they should rest easy knowing that paper is one of the most easily recyclable materials out there, and there are new techniques for recycling it constantly being developed.
So, now you know — from coil binding machines to it’s prevailing popularity, printed materials are still very relevant when it comes to the economy and our reading preferences as a whole.
