Care and feeding of books

March 5, 2016 12:28 PM

I'm looking at Brodart book jacket covers. According to their guide, they recommend polyester for circulating books and polypropylene for non-circulating/personal books. Can anyone tell me more about that distinction?

Obviously, my books aren't circulating, but Brodart also has a lot more options in polyester covers, including some marked "archival safe". I assume that means a higher standard of acid-free/stability of the material. What else does that entail? I'm thinking of getting either Just-A-Fold III covers (polyester, archival safe, helpful perforated folding guide) or Advantage I covers (polypropylene, less fancy).

Bonus questions: Eventually I'll want to look at sleeving my hardcovers without dust jackets, and my paperbacks as well. If you've got advice about that, I'd be happy to take it as well.

I understand that the solution for non-jacket hardcovers is films that stay in place with static charge. Brodart frustratingly seems to have their thickest film rolls (5mil) available only in huge, expensive sizes.

I haven't looked into paperback sleeves much at all yet, other than knowing that I don't want to touch the ones that just adhesive themselves to your book.

posted by vibratory manner of working to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Polyester is durable so if people are going to be doing a lot of handling, reading, covering it with stickum, it's going to hold up the best/longest. Generally costs more.

You might be interested in this discussion from rec.collecting.books on this topic from a decade ago, I can't imagine Brodart products have changed terribly much. For product specific stuff from them, I've found their sales reps to be decent helpful people. For something that is more qualitative and geared towards comparison shopping you might want to try a library mailing list, asking your local librarian or maybe getting on to one of the FB groups for librarians and asking there (I'm a mod at ALA Think Tank, I'm sure you'd get good answers there)
posted by jessamyn at 2:09 PM on March 5, 2016

This is more of a guess than an answer, but I would tend to think that the difference is likely one of cost. That is to say polyester is probably better-performing than polypropylene, but more costly. For a library book that is going to see a lot of use and abuse that is probably worth it, but it may be an unnecessary expense for personal books. Unless you just want to over-spec your book jackets for the heck of it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:42 PM on March 5, 2016

I was a rare/used book dealer for almost 20 years and we jacketed lots of books and ordered them from Brodart (who are very helpful people). Libraries need to protect against heavy use but collectors generally do not, so you can use a lighter jacket. If I remember correctly, the Just-a-Fold covers have paper backing,which adds a layer of thickness to deal with. We used the polypropelene and a bone to create nice creases. You can use the same thickness for hardcovers with no dust jacket but you'll need to buy a roll so it doesn't have the crease at the bottom to sit the dj into. For paperbacks, I suggest bags instead of sleeves -- much easier to handle and keeps the fragile pb in shape better. You've just reminded me that I have a bunch of books to put sleeves on -- time to get to work.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:42 PM on March 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

My beau repairs books for a very large university's circulating collection. He says:

This is from a preservation perspective, in a circulating collection - we toss all our book jackets, as that's where one would stick things like call number stickers, bar codes, etc., and if that was to get misplaced then it's a pain in the butt to do it all over again. For someone's personal collection, I would think that environmental concerns would be more of an issue. Basically, replicating library conditions at the very least - low, controlled humidity, lower temperatures, monitoring for insects, etc. If they do feel like they'd be happier putting jackets on their books, go with the "archival" option, but they should do some research into what that actually means. Acid free is a must, and we tend to put fragile/brittle items in custom-sized boxes or, if they're thin enough, in a pocket that's in a pamphlet binder.

I would also worry more about how heavier books are stored. If they aren't case flush bottom, then it's worth seeing if they can be laid flat, rather than sitting upright. Over time, the weight of the textblock can exert a lot of pressure on the binding and damage it.

posted by fiercecupcake at 8:48 AM on March 7, 2016

Response by poster: That's a good point about other issues being more important for the health of the book.

Right now I'm interested in sleeves in order to protect the dust jackets themselves more than the books per se. I noticed that if I'm reading a book with the dust jacket on it can slide around a little and get bent along the top or bottom edges. I've been taking the dust jackets off while reading and putting them back when I'm done, but with the couple books I have that came already sleeved that extra bit of reinforcement means I don't have to do that.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:52 PM on March 7, 2016

Response by poster: Following up: I eventually contacted Brodart about the polyester vs polypropylene. Best I can parse the response, there's no reason not to use polyester covers for non-circulating/personal collections, it's just overkill.

The Just-a-Fold III description mentioned archival safe adhesive, but it turns out that just means the adhesive where the paper and plastic are joined, not additional adhesive to hold it closed. That was unclear to me before I actually bought some so I figured it's worth mentioning.

Anyway, I went with just-a-fold III mostly for the archival safe designation, and I'm in the process of covering my dust jackets.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:01 PM on September 14, 2016 [2 favorites]