You’d think a bookbinder might be feeling a little anxious in the Internet age. But Hawaii fine bookbinder Jesus Sanchez, who makes and repairs books entirely by hand, says he isn’t worried.

Since binding began in the 7th century A.D., there have always been rare books needing work. Restoring Queen Liliuokalani’s Bible was one of his favorite jobs.

"I think people still love books; I’m talking about hard, not e-copies. I don’t think the Internet has changed that at all," Sanchez, 64, said in a gentle, lightly accented voice by phone from his bindery in Hilo.

Indeed, the Association of American Publishers reported that e-book sales dropped 10.3 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2014, marking the first time e-book sales have declined.

"There’s intrinsic value in the book itself, the three-dimensional object — the paper, fonts, binding — and that you’re holding it in your hands," Sanchez said.

Oahu book lovers will have a rare chance to see and learn from the Hilo resident Saturday at Na Mea Hawai’i in Ward Warehouse.

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sanchez will lead a basic bookbinding workshop in which each student learns to make a journal with 100 pages and a hard cover, bound in pure linen.

"I bring everything, all folded and precut, and the students put it together," he said. In a fine book the folded page signatures are always sewn, never glued to the binding, he added.

Lilinoe Andrews took Sanchez’s class at Na Mea Hawai’i in June 2013, the last time he taught it. "I thought we would take home a nice little softcover, handmade-looking journal, and I left with a hardbound, stitched book with endsheets, everything, all the parts. We all felt very, very fortunate."

Eager to repeat the experience, Andrews has signed up for Saturday’s session.

Following the class, from 3 to 5 p.m., Sanchez will give free consultations, by appointment, on the conservation and rebinding of old books that people bring in to the store.

"I’ve repaired many old family Bibles that were falling apart," he said. "I’ll evaluate their book and see how much it would cost to rebind it in leather."

He is the only bookbinder in Hawaii who works in leather, which he calls "the noble material."

As a child, Sanchez learned the craft of bookbinding at home with his father in Mexico City. "It was not a business, just a general family activity. He was a bookbinding teacher."

At the national university in Mexico City, Sanchez earned his bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature and got to know writers such as Carlos Monsivais, Juan Jose Arreola and Carlos Fuentes.

"Then I went to Europe just to travel and then applied to go to school at the University of Madrid and was accepted," he said, noting his family roots in Valencia and Andalucia, Spain. He did bookbinding work while studying for his master’s degree in classical Spanish literature.

Bookbinding and restoration projects close to his heart have included different fine editions of Cervantes’ "Don Quixote de la Mancha" as well as literature by other Spanish authors of the 16th and 17th centuries.

In the late 1970s, Sanchez worked for a year at the bindery in the Vatican in Rome. "It’s not as exciting as it sounds," he said. "I loved Italy, so that was the best part. I made many friends and, until recently, used to go back to visit every couple of years."

At the invitation of Pope John Paul II, he went to Havana in 1998 to teach a bookbinding workshop as part of a charitable mission. There he met Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who asked him to set up a book bindery to restore the country’s vast collection of historic books, some of them dating to the 1600s.

"He was enamored by books and had a very interesting library himself of a few thousand volumes," Sanchez said. When Castro said the country had no money to pay him, Sanchez agreed to do the project for free. Today the Havana bindery has grown to include staff as well as students, and Sanchez returns to teach there on a regular basis.

He has also taught in Brazil, Haiti and "very poor areas of Central America," he said, "teaching people the trade so they will have a job to do. Everywhere you go there are books, old books, and you can make a little living out of it."

Wherever he teaches, Sanchez keeps costs down for his students to make the craft accessible and practicable, no matter what their means. Andrews remembered that Sanchez provided all the supplies, all very inexpensive, for the Na Mea Hawai’i class.

"He really emphasized that bookbinding can be done by anyone, anywhere, with any material," she said.

As his reputation grew, so did Sanchez’s private client list, which has included Castro, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Spanish royalty, but "it’s not like I meet the people. They usually have somebody else contact me."

Sanchez first came to Hawaii in the early 1980s, when he was hired to restore the paper in the shoji doors of a mansion in Hilo. He said he fell in love with the "beautiful, peaceful" town. He moved to Oahu, opened a bindery and met Roberta Hernandez, from the Philippines. They married and relocated to Hilo, where they raised their children: Nimai, Kesava, Kanani and Jesus III. (They are now divorced.)

Following family tradition, the children worked at Sanchez Bindery with their father as they were growing up. However, they have gone on to different careers, said Sanchez.

When he comes to Oahu, Sanchez often volunteers at the book preservation lab in Hamilton Library at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

"He’s taken our volunteers and staff through dismantling a book that is in poor condition, resewing it and putting it back together using the same cover — and it’s magical," said Deborah Dunn, the library’s book conservation specialist.

"We like to save the beautiful old covers. For us, every book is precious, and we want to retain its character if we can," she said, adding that Sanchez’s techniques and aesthetics help achieve just that.

"He’s a humble man. He likes to sit and work at the table with us," she said. "He’s come as a volunteer and trained everybody, and he’s made donations of equipment. He’s given me my favorite tools. One of them is an old tooth extractor that’s great for taking books apart so that we can repair them."

Dunn is further impressed by Sanchez’s versatility, his mastery of every step of the process that goes into making or restoring a book.

For example, he can replace damaged or missing pages, matching the paper and ink in a process known as leaf casting.

As Sanchez explained, there are people who specialize in sewing books, others in doing the gilding, others in leather work, pounding, molding and sometimes coloring it. He does it all.

At Na Mea Hawai’i in 2013, Sanchez taught a separate class in book restoration, which Andrews also took. "He’s like a brain surgeon," she said. "People would bring in old books, and in some cases he’d just rip these precious books apart and then we would go in and learn … the parts of a book."

Asked to name some favorite Hawaii projects, Sanchez’s voice brightened with excitement as he recalled binding several first editions of the journals of the voyages of Capt. James Cook.

In each edition there were nine books — "seriously big books," he said — including seven from the voyages, plus a volume on the life of Cook and an atlas.

His voice grew tender as he spoke of creating a limited edition of "The Living Endemic Birds of Hawaii." The work entailed binding prints of watercolors by Marian Berger in large, traditional folio books patterned after Audubon’s 19th-century "Birds of America."

At Na Mea Hawai’i his students will make something much simpler, but of substance nonetheless.

"I keep it in tissue paper," Andrews said of her handmade journal, covered in black linen. "Every time I take it out, I go, well, this was a miracle."

Maile Meyer, owner of Na Mea Hawai’i, called Sanchez "a thoughtful, calm, absolutely dedicated teacher."

Andrews said he came well prepared to get her class off to a quick start. "He brought in paper for the text blocks already folded and perforated for stitching," she said.

He was also "a taskmaster" about doing things correctly. "I think my stitching was really terrible. He made me start over, but I didn’t mind being scolded by him. You felt you were in the hands of a master, like a kumu hula."

Andrews, an assistant specialist at the Hawai’inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at UH-Manoa who has worked in publishing for more than 25 years, said she would recommend a class in bookbinding to anyone who loves books.

"Bookbinding rounds out my knowledge of books, publishing, literature. It’s the missing piece," she said.

Those who can’t take the course or bring in a book for a consultation Saturday can drop by Na Mea Hawai’i and see the koa-bound journals and photo albums for which Sanchez is renowned. They sell for $45 to $300.

"When I saw them I couldn’t resist them, such beautiful examples of the art," said Puakea Nogelmeier, professor of Hawaiian language at UH-Manoa, who has been buying Sanchez’s koa books for more than 20 years.

"He’s a star in my galaxy. He’s localized fine binding but also maintained an ancient world tradition of the art," said Nogelmeier, who gives the journals as gifts and collects them in both koa- and leather-bound versions. "They inspire me to write."

What inspires Sanchez, outside of his art?

"Well, I’ve been an archer for a long time. I practice kyudo, which is Japanese archery," he said. While not a Zen Buddhist, he also practices the accompanying meditation.

"You couldn’t shoot arrows unless you’re in a state of meditation," Sanchez said.

Much the same could be said about his practice of the age-old art of bookbinding, which demands focus, precision and devotion.