Protecting books before they're damaged

When I was in college, majoring in English, I had a lot of paperback reading matter that was going to see some hard use. That's when I started reinforcing the spines of paperbacks that I wanted to protect. I still do this when I buy something that I know I'll want to keep.

I use the Scotch 3/4" "frosted" tape that mostly doesn't show. Using a piece the length of the spine, I lay it straight down the spine, pressing lightly from the center outward, toward the top and bottom, to avoid wrinkles. As long as it goes over the edges and extends onto the covers, it seems to hold up well.

For a thicker spine, I overlap two pieces, and for a very thick book I place one strip down the center and then cover it by two more, one overlapping the front cover and one the back.

Then I burnish the tape down with a fingernail to make it mostly disappear.

This has prevented spines from cracking and held books together that would have fallen apart from wear and time. It seems to be a much more successful approach than trying to mend a book that has already seen some damage. Some of my books with this treatment are still in good shape four decades later.

I use clear packing tape on the edges of covers of books I know will see the inside of my backpack.

I use Rhino 2 book covers for the paperbacks I want to protect. They put a layer of thick, stiff, clear plastic over the front and back covers and thinner, flexible tape over the spine.

The website below has a video of how they are applied to books.

http://www.rycobookcovers.com/index.php?cPath=1_9

(Note: I have only included the link so that people can see the video. I am in no way promoting Ryco.)

I only do this for the paperbacks I really love or that I am going to be using repeatedly for work. I use these covers for all my son's college books.

Long ago I bought a roll of library supply, clear, archival, 4" wide tape. It is thick and absolutely clear. Works a treat on paperback spines. I bought some other book-repair materials at that time as well, which help with all my second hand/inherited damaged books.

I can't bring myself to apply things to undamaged books though.

I shudder every time I think of this:
My now-deceased father-in-law -- an avid reader and very scholarly type; published two books, even -- had the habit of "preserving" his paperback books in one of two ways.

One was to cut pieces of corrugated cardboard slightly smaller than the size of the book, and use masking tape to affix it to the inside of the covers, which he then reinforced with several more layers of masking tape.

The other method was to cover the entire book with a single piece of sticky-back, red or green felt. He would then type out the title and author in a sheet of paper, cut off the excess and glue these to the spine.

DON"T EVER DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS!

I've used packaging tape to repair a torn dust jacket, or scotch tape on the occasional torn page. But that's as far as I'd ever want to go. I prefer to just be super careful when reading or transporting my books.

>5 WholeHouseLibrary: Agreed, wholeheartedly! Actually, ALL the remedies offered here that involve tape worry me. What will the books look like in 10, 20, 50 years' time when the glue in the tape has "bled" and decayed?

Same with the plastic of the tape, which even if the glue just dries up, the plastic is going to become yellow and brittle in the sunlight and heat over time.

Now, that said, if you just want to keep a paperback from shredding in the moment due to hard use, and you don't care if it's still around in 10-15 years, then ok, sure. Do whatever it takes to keep it in temporary good shape. I do it with paperback textbooks all the time.

But I've had a horrible time going through and trying to find decent-quality replacement copies for old paperbacks and hardcovers that I had as a child and naively thought I was preserving with (god help me) masking tape and construction paper and cardboard and dark-printed fabric. All ruined now, and some unreadable because of my "help."

Nowadays there's tape and paper and binding strips that are UV protected, and all sorts of fancy UV-proof (well, UV-resistant) laminated covers or sticky sheets of plastic, not to mention all the fun book-specific glues and tapes and thread and papers. I am horrid at it, but actual book repair and preservation/recovery is awfully fun to do with good materials, but they're hellishly expensive.

How do paperback spines get "cracked?" I never crack the spines on my paperbacks, although when I buy them secondhand, they are frequently cracked. Why?

Depends on the size of the book, for one thing. The fatter it is, the harder it is to read without cracking. Some people, like my mother, essentially flatten the book while reading to keep it easy to see, maybe holding it with one hand while using the other to eat or type or whatever, others don't do it on purpose but in the course of reading wind up cracking it some. I do my best to avoid it and keep my books pristine but sometimes it's just not possible not to make a crack or two.

>9 MrsLee: I used to sell my used books through Amazon Marketplace, and I always listed them as "very gently read." You could hardly tell the pages had been turned, and the paperback covers and spines were practically pristine.

Bu I've seen people mash them open flat or bend them back and deliberately crack the spine so there's no resistance in holding the book open. I've seen people leave them open, face down, and park things on them.

Paperback textbooks in the "used" stack at the college bookstore also often have broken spines. So do many of the hardcovers, actually.

Especially in my bus- and subway-riding days, I saw people roll the covers all the way back so they could hold them open and read with one hand while holding onto a strap or pole.

I suppose these days subway riders are all on their smartphones; no books in sight?

I could never treat a book this way--I've never even dog-eared a page in all my life (although I see dog-eared pages in library books all the time); but back when paperbacks were cheap popular entertainment, when you bought yours new and then (maybe) threw it away like a used napkin, I suppose it didn't matter so much. Still, I think it basically disrespects the medium and forms a bad habit.

>11 Meredy: This does not compute, although I acknowledge that it exists because I've seen the evidence. Like you, I am a gentle reader and have always been. Possibly it was drummed into my while very small by my librarian assistant grandmother who gave me lovely books and expected me to care for them. :)

Did you also get a lot of "shush!"-ing from your grandmother?

>13 MrAndrew: Heh, if I did I don't remember, but my nose was usually in a book anyway. :)

Some paperback books are cracked because the glue has hardened or dried out. I have a few old mystery classics in paperback, mostly passed on from my mother, that were just loose pages at one point. I found a great craft glue that dries clear and flexible (tacky glue is the brand name) and it seems to be the perfect solution. Books I have repaired with it several years ago are still holding up well, including a couple of the loose pages ones.

Those of you who have read REAMDE in its trade paperback edition will know that it is a hefty 1,200 page tome. I read it and then leant it to my son-in-law to read.

My daughter later told me that her husband's immediate reaction was amazement (how could your Dad have read this book without cracking the spine?) followed by fear (how am I going to read your Dad's book without cracking the spine?).

Well, fair dues to my son-in-law, he read the book and it arrived back to me with the spine intact. Up untill that point my son-in-law could not conceive of reading a book and the spine not cracking. He's from Wisconsin. I do not know if that is relevant or not. ;-)

I have a story!

Recently I walked past the shelf I keep my cookbooks on near the kitchen. After I had passed, and set something on the shelf, a cookbook literally flew off the shelf onto the floor! I was several feet away at the time. Weird. Startling. Then I saw that it was The Mission Cook Book, put together by the Ladies Aid Society of the Immanuel Baptist Church of San Francisco, probably pre-earthquake.

When I was researching to find the publishing date of this cookbook, I found that the church has a very dark history. One article said it "was cursed from the moment it opened its doors on Capp Street in 1878. Its first two pastors killed themselves, and the third murdered San Francisco Chronicle co-founder Charles DeYoung in 1880."

In 1890 the congregation moved to a new building on Bartlett Street. This cookbook was written to raise funds for that building. Five years later, on April 13, 1895, two young women were discovered brutally murdered in the new church.

So this is the cookbook that leaped off of my shelves. Why am I telling about this here? Because I noticed that the cover was nearly falling off of the book, so I'm hoping that is the only reason it jumped, as a plea to be fixed. Clear Library tape has been applied, so hopefully it will reside quietly now. *shudder*

I discovered that a book has been written about the murders of the two women. Sympathy for the Devil:The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco by Virginia A. McConnell.

Great story, MrsLee! I won't spoil it by suggesting that the book probably fell because... nah.

>17 MrsLee: oooOOOOOOooooo!

I used to use the stiff Kapco covers on softcover books in my library but I found that clear adhesive laminate was not only cheaper but better at holding the cover together after repeated uses. The rigid covers seemed to cause the pages to pop out more often. I also gently remind my students not to bend the cover all the way back and that seems to help. But I'm not using these to help keep the books forever, just to give them a few more readings before needing to be replaced.