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Preserving Your Rare Books: Setting up and Maintaining Your Home Library

As a collector of rare books, your goal is to keep your collection in optimum shape. Youre careful with dust jackets and protect fragile books with clamshell cases. Even the way you shelve your rare books can impact their condition. Its important that your home library provides the support and protection that rare books need.

Umberto Eco could use a few of these tips in his personal library!Umberto Eco's Personal Library

Building Your Library from the Ground Up

Serious collectors know not to let their rare books come into contact with just any old paper, as  paper can contain harmful chemicals and acids. But what about the shelves themselves? We often assume that any bookshelf is fine for our books, but choosing the right shelving materials will help you preserve your books even more effectively:
  • Institutional libraries dont use metal shelves because theyre less expensive. The ideal material for shelves themselves is actually metal, coated with a baked enamel finish.
  • If metal shelves arent an option, coat your wooden shelves with a proper sealant to prevent acids from seeping into your books from the wood. The best options are a water-based aliphatic urethane or a clear two-coat epoxy finish.
  • Wood dries out as it ages, and the chemicals often used to treat wood also dissipate over time. If your books are housed in an extremely old wooden bookcase, theyre likely safe from damage.
  • In locations with high humidity, consider ventilated shelving. The additional air circulation can help prevent the growth of mold and mildew.


Storing Rare Books Properly

Its important to store rare books with care; rubbing, pulling, and pushing can all cause unnecessary damage and decrease the value of rare books and manuscripts. Its easy to simply place books on the shelves straight up and down, but that isnt always the best position for your books.
  • Avoid letting books slouch on the shelf. Any book with a spine wider than three inches, or taller than 18 inches, should be laid flat. The bindings of these books sometimes cannot support the spine, weakening the spine, warping the covers, and damaging the pages.
  • Do not stack these books more than three volumes high. Too much weight can warp the covers of the lower books.
  • Give your books a little space to breathe on the shelf. They should be close enough to support each other, but not packed so tightly that the bindings are abraded when you remove a book.
  • If you use bookends, make sure they are tall enough that your books dont lean over the top of the bookends. The weight of the book against the bookend can cause damage to the cover.
  • Tall books that are shelved next to short books tend to get warped and deformed over time.  Shelve books by size whenever possible.

Using the right materials and shelving techniques can make all the difference in maintaining the value of your rare book collection.


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Kristin Masters
Master Content Brain. You think it, she writes it, no good thought remains unposted. Sprinkles pixie dust on Google+, newsletters, blog, facebook, twitter and just about everything else.


 

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How can I identify a first edition? Where do I learn about caring for books? How should I start collecting? Hear from librarians about amazing collections, learn about historic bindings or printing techniques, get to know other collectors. Whether you are just starting or looking for expert advice, chances are, you'll find something of interest on blogis librorum.

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