Cover Your Books!
So you say you're a book collector? Do you cover your dust jackets? Do you go that extra mile to protect what is in essence something that is designed to protect your books anyway? Well I sure as hell do! I like having that extra security blanket that is an extra level of clear acid-free polyester. I have a tendency to be clumsy and let me say these come in handy. While reorganizing during your Spring Cleaning you may drop or bump your books and more than once a torn dust jacket incident was averted due to my careful covering of my books in a bibliomanical frenzy (I think it took a week to cover them all). There are many places you can get these covers online, but there are some features I personally like to avoid. The covers fall into two basic categories: those with paper and plastic and those that are just plastic. I do not recommend the ones that have paper. Now while they are nice because they have paper to protect the inside of the dust jacket giving it a full 360 degrees of protection the paper is affixed to the plastic via a glue substance. While the glue substance is supposedly acid free, the main problem I have is say, what if your room where you keep your books got hades hot and then the glue started to run and, god forbid, got all over that book you were trying to keep extra safe to begin with!?! I say better to avoid the possibility, I mean it's hard enough if you are a true bibliomanic trying to adhere to proper book care guidelines, where books have to have the right humidity and temperature, just the right level of low sunlight, not to even mention that bookshelves are only to be on inner walls due to outer walls having too many temperature variables... best to keep stress at a minimum. And that is what I'm here to help do! Reduce your stress. I like to buy from General Book Covers. They have great products with lots of sizes at reasonable prices and with good customer service and speedy delivery. Not to mention they are also local-ish, they operate out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and that makes a Wisconsinite proud. So if your books need a little extra something something, head on over to there site and take care of your book needs! They also have a great interactive step by step to show you how to cover your books, the only thing I might add is it's good to have a ruler or something with a hard edge to get the extra nice crease at the bottom.
I never ever thought about this. I feel like a bibliophilic fraud. Is there anyway you can take a picture of the dust jacket, is just plastic like on a library book?
Thanks for adding another item to my spring cleaning list ;)
Monica Corwin said... March 19, 2010 at 2:16 AM
It's exactly what libraries use. It's see through, but adds a little bit of a reflective quality to your book, but seeing as it's bouncing off the harmful u-v rays it's all good. If you go to this past post (http://strange-and-random-happenstance.blogspot.com/2009/06/time-to-vamp-it-up.html) my hardcover Sookie books have the jackets on them in this picture. But if you'd like more info I'll be glad to post more. I just love these covers.
Miss Eliza said... March 19, 2010 at 2:20 AM
Nice! Most of the books I own aren't collector items, but it would be nice to have that extra protection. The next time I'm in Eau Claire I'll swing by and pick some up! Thanks for the tip!
Anonymous said... March 19, 2010 at 8:59 AM
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