Hey, I can answer this! I know lots about printing. :)
Books are printed in 16- or 32-page "signatures" or groups of pages. The pages are printed on giant rolls of paper, then cut and folded into the right order. Then the signatures are taken over to a binding machine and placed (by hand) in the correct order. So in your case, the guy manning the binding machine messed up. The "page 146-178" bin ran out before he put more in, so some books got bound without one. It happens. They do quality control, but sometimes things get through. It won't happen to an entire run (they would notice that for sure), probably only a hundred or so, tops.
I know it's annoying. But if you think about those giant presses churning out 100s of thousands of books every day, it's not hard to imagine that mistakes can happen. I'm always amazed that there aren't more printer's errors. I'm glad you're getting a new copy.
-jennie (who likes to talk about printing way too much. :D)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 08:31 pm (UTC)Books are printed in 16- or 32-page "signatures" or groups of pages. The pages are printed on giant rolls of paper, then cut and folded into the right order. Then the signatures are taken over to a binding machine and placed (by hand) in the correct order. So in your case, the guy manning the binding machine messed up. The "page 146-178" bin ran out before he put more in, so some books got bound without one. It happens. They do quality control, but sometimes things get through. It won't happen to an entire run (they would notice that for sure), probably only a hundred or so, tops.
I know it's annoying. But if you think about those giant presses churning out 100s of thousands of books every day, it's not hard to imagine that mistakes can happen. I'm always amazed that there aren't more printer's errors. I'm glad you're getting a new copy.
-jennie (who likes to talk about printing way too much. :D)