December 3rd, 2004

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Books
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What To Do With Your Dust Jackets?

Over at Ask MetaFilter, a user asks ’should I throw away the dust jackets from my hardcover books?’

In the event that I got more shelving so that they were arranged in a decent manner, I’d like to take off the dust jackets. But, like my grandparents, I find it hard to convince myself to throw these away. What’s the point of keeping them? Do they really serve any purpose? I’ve always kept them just because they come that way.

I’ve always wondered about that too. We have some bookshelves with glass doors. They’re my favourite piece of furniture (you can see a bit of them in the background of this image). However, they’re near some big windows, so a lot of the paperbacks and dust jackets are getting faded. Should I dispense with the jackets? Or maybe wait until I get a dusky, dark study to store them, where the sun will never reach.

Comments: 5 Responses so far

John
December 3rd, 2004
2:27 pm

Aside from from protecting the cover (dust and light), collectables’ (first print fiction) can quadruple in value with the original DJ. Condition is as important as that of the book. I’m still trying to find out when they first appeared

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Mark
December 3rd, 2004
2:51 pm

I noticed your bookcases before in a video you posted - they do look good. The reason I noticed is that I might be in the market for something similar - so where did they come from?

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sxKitten
December 6th, 2004
9:13 am

Oh, I covet your bookshelves! Books I have aplenty, but I have always wanted bookshelves with glass doors.

What I really, really want is one of those two-story libraries with ladders to reach the upper shelves. But’s that’s probably never gonna happen, so I’m holding out for glass doors. And not from IKEA, either.

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Darren
December 6th, 2004
9:31 am

Here’s the reply I sent to Mark on the bookshelves:

Apologies for the delay. Web and mail server fall down, go boom. Regardless, we got those bookshelves from a place on south Granville called Farmhouse Collections. They’re a nifty kind of fauxtique store.

The shelves are each about 4′ wide by 8′ high, but they fit together and look like one piece that’s about 8′ square. I’m very pleased with them. If I did it again, I would look into some kind of glass that might diminish the fading of the books. Not a big deal for me, but definitely an issue for a collector.

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Vero
December 6th, 2004
3:16 pm

I’m so jealous *sigh* I’m still looking forward to the day I get proper bookshelves. For the time being, I’ve got some IKEA wonky shelves…

As for dust jackets, I was having that conversation with one of the editors where I work, and no one could really justify dust jackets on most types of books. I work in educational publishing though, so we don’t bother with those! They wouldn’t last 5 minutes after University students get their mitts on them!

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