How to Keep Books in Good Condition

Handling and Caring for Books

Handle books hygienically. Handling your books hygienically will help ensure minimal wear and tear, accidental spills, or permanent stains. Wash your hands before handling any book and avoid having any liquids or foods nearby during handling or reading to help keep your book in an ideal condition. Avoid using saliva to turn pages. Use a sponge instead. Use cotton gloves if you are handling a rare, old, or fragile book. Don't eat or drink anything while you're reading.

Remove large or bulky bookmarks. Large bookmarks can stress both the binding or glue in the spine of the book as well as make impressions and indentations in the page. Remove bulky bookmarks to reduce the chance of pages being accidentally ripped, torn, or damaged while reading. Try using a piece of thread or silk ribbon as a bookmark to avoid any unwanted damage. If you wish to keep the bookmark with the book, place the bookmark in an acid-free envelope next to the book or inside an insert. Avoid folding, or “dog-earing,” the corners of pages as they can cause lasting damage.

Avoid damage to the binding. Both paperback and hardback books are either bound with an adhesive, stitching, or a combination of the two. The wider you open a book, the more stress you are putting the spine and binding under. Use caution when opening new hardbacks as they often have a stiff spine and are prone to cracking.

Turn pages carefully. Pages experience natural deterioration over time and can often become quite fragile or brittle. Use caution when turning pages in order to avoid unwanted tears, wrinkles, dimples, and rips to pages or fragile bindings.

Try to use two hands while reading. Using two hands while reading will ensure that the book's binding and pages are not being unnecessarily stressed. If holding a book with two hands is uncomfortable due to fragility, size, or weight, lay the book on a table or cradle it in your lap. Don't bend paperback covers while reading. It can be difficult to get them to resume their original shape and it often causes spine damage. Invest in reading copies if you have a book you can't put down and want to preserve.

Send rare and fragile books to a specialist in book conservation. Whether you have a rare first edition or a paperback with sentimental value, sending a damaged book to a specialist is your best chance at repair. Book conservationists can have many specializations, from historic preservation to binding and material repair. Consult national book conservation organizations, like the Regional Alliance for Preservation (RAP) or the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), to find out which local conservationists can provide you with a consultation.

Storing Books

Shelve books upright. Avoid shelving books too tightly or leaning against one another as this can cause lasting warping, structural damage, and cracking. When shelving, place books of similar height and length next to one another to avoid stressing the spine. Placing a book flat is an alternative to upright shelving. However, when shelving a book horizontally be sure to put as little weight on top of it as possible. Grab the middle of the spine when removing a book from a shelf to avoid damaging the head (top) and foot (bottom) of the spine.

Keep books out of direct sunlight and in a cool area. Place your books in a controlled climate to help prolong the book's quality. Sunlight, heat, and humidity can all have negative effects on the book's binding, structure, and page quality. Humidity can cause mildew to grow on your books. If you live in a particularly humid environment, and mildew begins to grow, simply wipe the mildew with a very dry cloth and leave the book in sunlight for 30-45 minutes. Be careful not to leave it longer as sunlight can cause the cover to fade. If a rare or fragile book grows mildew bring it to a specialist in book conservation.

Keep your books clean. Clean your books regularly in order to prevent natural wear and tear and increase the quality of their storage. Dusting your books will help reduce permanent page and cover aging. Make sure to dust your books from the spine outward so dust does not settle behind the spine. Avoid storing books in plastic bags. Books need to breathe and plastic can cause molding or warping. Instead, try wrapping the book in acid-free cloth or purchases a book storage box.