Hi Jessica and welcome! Sorry it's taken me a while to reply.
I'm friendly with a paper conservator and she has influenced me a lot, especially when it comes to working with old books. She has
very strong feelings about PVA and they're not good! She recommends EVA and it's what I've used on my antiquarian books or any modern ones that I hope will still be around for many years to come. If I remember correctly, it's to do with the molecular structure. PVA's is linear. After several years it will be rock hard and because of the linear element, could crack. EVA has a cluster structure. As a result, it will never become completely hard, so even in 50 or 100 years time, there will still be some give in it. I'm afraid I've never heard of Liquid Padding, so I can't comment on that.
On the plus side, the old books will take you through traditional ways of binding, it's not a craft that changes too much, so I doubt you'll go far wrong with them. The main changes are probably modern equipment, like leather paring machines or printers for making labels rather than having to tool them by hand. On the minus side, the old books aren't always the most user friendly!
The Society of Bookbinders has a couple of DVDs you can buy, the one on rebacking a cloth binding is excellent, very clear and easy to follow and I'd definitely recommend it.
http://www.societyofbookbinders.com/sho ... index.htmlThere are also several tutorials online, I have some demonstrations on my own website, originally put together simply to show non binders what goes into rebinding an old book (and pre-dating my meeting a paper conservator, so PVA is mentioned!). From the feedback I've had, beginners have found the pages helpful too.
http://www.catsup.co.uk/bookbinding.htmWhat you will find, is that every binder has his/her preferred methods. Like most crafts, there can be several ways of approaching each stage and all of them acceptable. For this reason, I'd suggest sticking with one explanation for each procedure (rebacking, cloth rebind etc.) until you feel comfortable with it. Once you've got the basics under your belt, then take a look at how others approach it and be open to new ideas. Otherwise (and I speak from bitter experience having been taught by 3 different professionals in quick succession when I first started!) it can become very confusing.
Hope that helps.