Books are one of the most precious things that you can keep in your home. Whether it’s a story that you love a book that you’ve held onto for the entirety of your life, one of the worst things that can happen is for it to wind up damaged. The team at CoLibri Cover Systems couldn’t agree more, which is exactly why we wanted to dedicate today’s blog to telling you more about the things that you could do to prevent the chance of damages to any books that you have. Let’s go ahead and get started.
Consider Where You’re Storing Them
One of the best things that you can do to minimize the chances of your books getting damaged is to think hard about where it is that you’re going to store them. For starters, you don’t want to put your books in an area where there won’t be too much moisture. Even the slightest bit of humidity can affect the wellbeing of your books.
Aside from that, you will want to think about the placement of the books on your storage. If you’re go9ing to use a bookshelf, you want to think about whether or not the books are low enough where children or pets could get into them and damage them. If so, you may want to consider a book shelf that keeps your books from being too close to this easy-to-reach level.
Keep Hands Clean
A majority of books are going to have paper somewhere in the mix, which is exactly why you want to make sure that you are handling them with clean hands. Whether it’s the residue from a snack that you’ve been munching on or it’s just an excess of natural oil from your hands, it can quickly do some damage to the book.
If you’re thinking about your personal library, making an active effort to wash hands before handling your books is a fantastic decision and something to try and stick to. When talking about places like school libraries, encouraging children to wash hands before visiting the library or having some hand sanitizer available for them to use is definitely something that you can do to minimize the chances of dirty hands damaging books.
Remove Food From the Situation
Another culprit of damaged books is food. While sitting back and reading is a great time to snack on some of your favorite treats, it is also one of the easiest ways to do some damage to your favorite stories. For books that are within a library, completely banning food is a quick and easy way to ensure there isn’t any damage that occurs because of food. When it comes to your personal library, being aware of the chance of the food you’re snacking on doing damage is a must. Beyond that, it’s up to your discretion whether or not you choose to eat food while reading your books.
Use Materials Safe for Books
Most avid readers will use sticky notes as well as other supplies to mark parts of books that they were intrigued by or want to come back to. While this is extremely common, the last thing that you want is for these supplies to do damage to the book. For that reason, you should always spend some time to look into the supplies that you’re considering putting into your book. Though sticky notes are one of the more common supplies used, their sticky residue can get stuck on the pages and damage them. If possible, consider using paper bookmarks to hold your place so that you don’t have to worry about the pages being damaged.
Invest in Book Cover Protectants
If you know that your books are going to get quite a bit of use, choosing to invest in a book covering system is definitely worth it. These systems make it easy for you to put a clear cover on the covers of your books. Simply select your book, place the plastic over the cover, and use the system to create a seal that keeps liquids, foods, and other oils away from the paper. That way, if there is any liquid spilled or food that get splattered near the cover, it’s a quick and easy clean and you don’t need to worry about the book being damaged.
CoLibri Cover Systems offers an affordable and effective method of protecting your books. Whether you’re looking to protect books in a school library or you are wanting to protect the books in your personal library, this system can help. Take a minute to browse the different covering systems that we have available online and find the one that best suits your needs. Feel free to contact our team if you have any questions or need help figuring out which system works best for you.