Whether you gathered over the years an impressive number of rare books thus reaching to a valuable collection or you just have those books that you read since childhood and have a special place into your heart, they both require a high level of attention and care. You can view them both as collectible books that are very pretentious and sensitive when it comes to handling and storing them. Your book collection could lose its value if you do not inquire about the best methods to preserve it. You should rejoice that completing the preservation process only requires time and patience taking into account that other valuable collections demand extensive upkeep and significant financial investments. However, these items have flexing parts making it more difficult to handle and care for them. Furthermore, you have to become familiar with the main enemies that have the potential to destroy your beloved books, especially when kept in self storage near Albuquerque.
How to take proper care of your rare books
In order to preserve your books in perfect condition, then you must follow certain steps religiously. First, you cannot touch any of the books if you have dirty hands or place them on a dirty surface. This is common sense, but the covers will inevitably get dirty. Secondly, never keep food or drink around the book. Make sure that you eat before you decide to read it. Surprisingly, the way you grab the book from the shelf matters significantly. Place your hand at the middle of the book instead of grabbing it from the top of the spine and pulling it out. Moreover, you also need to pay close attention to the opening angle of the book. Avoid opening it to 180 degrees and do not use folding techniques or paper clips to bookmark pages. If you want to provide maximum protection to the covers of your books, you should wrap them in UV-resistant plastic covers. This will prevent over-handling and oily hands from destroying them.
Discover the enemies of antique books
You can maintain the monetary value of your antique books if you protect them against unfavorable conditions. These favorable conditions involve sun, dust and humidity. Direct sunlight can have a massive negative impact on the integrity of your valuable books. For this reason, you should keep then as far away as you can from it because the sun will fade covers thus devaluing your rare books. If you allow dust to accumulate in the area you placed your books, it can lead to the appearance of mold and mildew encouraging bug infestation. However, you benefit from a simple and easy way to keep dust away from your precious items. You just have to dust them regularly without using chemical cleaners, of course. Once again, this is common sense, but those solutions are too harsh on paper and it would destroy it. Those plastic covers also help by keeping dust of so use them with confidence. In what concerns temperature or humidity, make sure that you do not place your book near air vents.
