How To Store Antique Books

How To Store Antique Books

 

There are only a few considerations when storing an antique book; temperature, position, and aesthetics.

 

 

Temperature

Its very important to maintain temperature and humidity of antique books. If the book gets too hot, it speeds up decay on the binding glue which can lead to brittle bindings. If the book gets too cold then its not as big of a deal but temperatures below freezing should be avoided because a temperature swing could then cause moisture to form on the book. For these reasons you shouldn’t leave a book in your car after you buy it in any climate or time of year. Overall, shoot for somewhere between 45 and 85 degrees.

 

Humidity

Humidity is very important for antique books. The books will breathe moisture in and out of themselves over the year and they need a certain minimum amount of moisture otherwise the pages can turn brittle. Too much moisture is also a bad thing because it can lead to mold and mildew. Mildew can start forming around 50 percent humidity in the air and the books will be too dry below 20 percent humidity. If you’re choosing to store your books in the basement, make sure to have a dehumidifier running to help regulate the humidity. The books will also act as a moisture sink so it can be difficult to pull moisture out of a large number of books. Don’t store your books in plastic sleeves for too long. It’s generally okay for shipping and moving purposes but you can trap moisture in the sleeve leading to mold.

 

Sunlight

Try to keep your books in as little direct sunlight as possible. Sunlight will cause your books to fade in color over time. Most of the time its very noticeable because the binding side will be sun faded and the covers are still close to the original color. Direct sunlight can also add about 10 degrees of temperature to the book, causing the binding to breakdown without you realizing it.

 

Position

 

You will most likely want to store your book upright on a bookshelf to help take the stress off the binding. Leather books will often split their binding cover off if you stack them horizontally instead of vertically. The other types of covers are more forgiving in this regard and most paperbacks can be safely stored on their side instead of upright. If you do choose to store your books on their side, then try to stack like sized books together to avoid putting an indent into a cover. Also try to not store the books more than about ten to a stack or so (about a foot tall). Too much weight will cause indents and can separate a binding cover from being compressed. But remember, the best way is to store them upright on a bookshelf using bookends to make sure they aren’t slanted. A book stored at a slant will “remember” that and get stuck like that.

 

Aesthetics

 

Don’t feel like you need to hide your books in a climate controlled darkroom to keep them nice. It might be the best practice (libraries do something similar), but we buy these books to enjoy them so its inevitable that they will see some wear and tear. And that’s okay, most of us that collect understand that no book is going to be perfect after 50 years. So its okay to compromise and not be perfect as long as you don’t get mold, mildew, or too much sun-fading and brittle pages.