Growth of School Libraries
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs allocated large sums of federal money for school library materials and consequently New Method continued to grow. Its new building on West Morton was expanded eight times between 1962 and 1995 to a total of 110,000 square feet. Lawrence D. Sibert became Chairman in 1964 and Robert F. Sibert took his place as President.
The library world had long referred to the prebound books from New Method as "those bound to stay bound books", thus it was decided to change the company name to Bound to Stay Bound Books in 1970. Also in the 1970s, the company began to make its own decorated covers and produce its own catalog cards, both of which were previously bought from outside companies. The bindery's processing department, where employees make the books shelf-ready with catalog cards, pockets, spine labels, spine stamping and laminated jackets, grew rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s as fewer and fewer librarians had time to perform these tasks themselves.
Robert L. Sibert, Robert F. and Jessica's only son, joined the company in 1978. A year later, Robert F. Sibert became Chairman of the company, in addition to his position as President, when Lawrence D. Sibert died after seventy-one years in the bookbinding business.
