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Tips for Storing Your Books Properly

Tips for Storing Your Books Properly

Storing your books the right way prevents damage to the covers and pages, while also helping to declutter your home.

Books can be precious heirlooms and treasured mementos. Whether or not they are custom projects, every book deserves to be cared for properly. Storing your books the right way prevents damage to the covers and pages, while also helping to declutter your home.

Select Better Furniture

When it comes to preserving your book collection, the furniture in the room might not be something that you immediately think about. It’s easy to associate wooden shelves and bookcases with keeping your books safe, but that is a common misconception. There is acid in wood that can damage the covers, spines, and inside pages of all of the books on your shelf. If you have no choice but to use wood, then choose the best wood possible. In this case, you need to find a type of wood that won’t leach as much acid. That means you should stay away from using oak furniture.

Protect the Books

Now, you need to take better care of the books. Part of this involves monitoring the humidity in the room where you keep all of your books, especially if you plan on storing them out of sight until you want to reread them. Make sure that humidity levels are somewhere between 35-50%, as too much humidity will cause foxing on your books – unsightly blotches and spots that show the book’s age. For newer books, this isn’t as much of a concern, but for much older books – particularly those from the 18th or 19th century, they can fade away much more quickly. It’s also a smart idea to keep books out of direct sunlight. Too much sunlight exposure, especially UV rays, can wear out the dust jackets on your book.

Other Care Tips

Find books that are a similar size and shelve them together. This way, they can support each other and help other books nearby stay upright. Allowing the books to lean over can contribute to further binding damage. Use bookends whenever possible, and you may want to stack the books horizontally, especially when dealing with heavier volumes.    

Advantage Book Binding Can Help You Create the Printed Book You’ve Always Wanted!

Are you interested in having a bound novel? Are you entering the workforce, and need a bound portfolio to showcase your work? Advantage Book Binding offers plenty of services and binding types that are perfect for suiting your needs. We also offer specialty binding options for those of you looking for something extra special. Advantage Book Binding can advise you as to what kind of binding style will work best for your specific project, taking into consideration budget requirements to provide you with the most cost-effective and project-specific solution for you. Please contact us today for more information, and keep up with us on Facebook, Google +, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also, don’t hesitate to visit us at our Baltimore headquarters.