To Jacket or Not To Jacket

I stumbled on a lively debate online about books and how to care for them. It seemed to have started when one person asked, "Dust jackets, yea or nay?" and escalated from there. The overall concensus was that dust jackets should be kept because they increase the resale value of most books, help minimize wear and tear on the covers, and as their name implies, they do keep dust off the spines. A few people admitted to trashing the dust jackets immediately upon purchase to which some die-hards reacted with disgust and refused to chat with those "heathens" again. 

I have a love-hate relationship with dust jackets, myself. Most of them are designed to catch your eye in the bookstore and therefore have pretty garish artwork that doesn't appeal to me. Dust jackets tend to slide around when you're reading and if you take it off, where do you put it? And while dust jackets can help you quickly locate a book on your shelves, the cloth spines are more aesthetically pleasing to me. But, my books have their jackets because as their owner and friend, I feel it's my job to safeguard them. 

A small band of unconventional thinkers said they kept the dust jackets but not on the books. They had a storage box in a closet where they stored the jackets flat so that if they ever wanted to resell their books, they would have them, but in the meantime, they could have the look of beautiful cloth spines on their shelves. 

A couple of people said they got rid of their bound books when they got their Kindle or Nook and now they don't have to worry about dust jackets at all. I can't even imagine. A home without books on shelves... I tear up just thinking of it. Though that might lend credence to the thought that dust jackets will become more valuable over time. As e-readers become more prevalent, having those jackets with their synopses and author information could become quite the collectors' items. 

I had no idea so much could be said about dust jackets. 

What seemed to be more important to everyone was the way owners cared for their books. There are definite do's and don't's to make sure your books last a long time. 

• Sunlight and humidity are natural enemies of your books. Make sure your shelves aren't exposed to direct sunlight and keep your rooms' tempurature regulated. 
• Always store your books upright, never on their sides. I have been known to ignore this when I use a stack of books as a 'book end' to keep other books upright. I do try to swap out the books that are lying down from time to time but I should just decide now to stop this practice. I'll invest in some nice books ends this year.
• Make sure air can flow around your books. This means having some room between the books and the back of the bookcase. 
• Clean your books regularly. To do so, simply take off the dust jacket, hold the book closed and upright, and run a feather duster over the top and sides. 
• Be careful with food and drink around your books. And for goodness sake, don't use your book as a coaster.
• Always use a bookmark to keep your place. Never set down a book open-faced on the table, you'll damage the spine. 
• Never lend a book unless you really don't care about the condition in which it's returned. (Okay, that's my own rule.) I once loaned a mint condition book to a coworker and it was returned looking as though it had been thrown into a pool and then run over by a train. Thankfully, it wasn't a valuable tome. 

 So, what about you? Are you a dust jacket keeper or recycler? Do you care for books like they're friends or just another object in the room? Do you have your own book 'rules'?

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” ― Oscar Wilde