The first copies of The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition are off the press and ready for the debut singing on September 12–14! We visited the press to check in on the book’s production and document it for posterity. These photographs illustrate the many steps it takes to produce a songbook, including printing, cutting, folding, collating, gluing, capping, stitching, binding, casing-in, and packaging.
Photographs by Jim Pfau and Jesse P. Karlsberg
Pages of The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition emerging from the printing machine in a continuous wide sheet with multiple songs.
Slicing the large sheet of paper into smaller sections for folding and stacking.
Folded sections called “signatures” with forty-eight pages from the songbook.
Pallets loaded with thousands of copies of individual signatures awaiting collation. The stack in the foreground features the first set of pages.
Signatures stacked in bays in preparation for collation by the machine that combines the signatures into complete book blocks. Clips hold samples labeled with the final page of each signature.
Workers staging and feeding signatures into the machine, which extends to the far end of the manufacturing facility. Each pallet in the foreground holds the remaining copies of a single signature of the book..
A “book block” is formed as the signatures are collated and then glued and capped with a cambric fabric. The book blocks are on their way to the part of the machine that trims the edges for a perfect finish.
A worker operating the side-sewing machine that strengthens the binding by stitching through the sides of the book block.
A close-up of the side-sewing machine as it stitches the book block together.
Finished book blocks on their way to the next step, where they will be bound to the covers, a process called “casing in.” You’ll have to wait to see the cover design at our big reveal at the book launch in September!
Some of the first cases of The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition off the production line, packed and ready to head to singers like you!
