Animal's contribution to bookbinding (7)
I believe the answer is:
buckram
'bookbinding' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'animal's contribution' is the wordplay.
'animal' becomes 'buck' (buck is a kind of animal).
'contribution' becomes 'ram' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'buck'+'ram'='BUCKRAM'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for buckram that I've seen before include "stiff stuff!" , "stiff material" , "Coarse stuff" , "Bookbinding material - cub mark (anag)" , "Rough fabric sized to be stiff" .)