We keep dust jackets on books for our circulating collections. However, we are not using a "dust jacket system" -- such as the CoLibri system now available through Archival Products. <http://www.archival.com/productcatalog/colibri.shtml>
At Carleton, we have been keeping dust jackets on most new books since 2001 -- close to 8000 volumes the last time I checked. About 40% of our incoming books have dust jackets.
The dust jackets are enclosed in a Mylar cover with acid-free paper backing. Student employees do all of our book processing for general collections materials. It takes an experienced student about one minute to apply the dust jacket cover. We did purchase a 14" Kutrimmer to make it easier to neatly trim the Mylar cover to fit the jacket. Our unit costs to process a book with a dust jacket (all materials & labor) are $1.10. This is 60% more than the cost to process a book without a dust jacket. We have decided that the additional cost is warranted, due to the benefits we believe the jackets provide.
We are seeing more and more books where the dust jacket is an integral part of the cover design. In some situations, the cover does not "read" without the dust jacket. Our student employees have found creative ways to apply the Mylar covers on dust jackets with a wide variety of presentation -- cut-outs, half-covers, translucents, etc. We are also finding that more paperbacks are coming with dust jackets, which we also cover for the same reasons.
Our experience is that the Mylar dust jacket covers wear well. Only occasionally do we need to replace a dust jacket cover due to damage. We also tape the cover to the book in such a way that the tape does not contact the cover of the book, but only the dust jacket cover itself. Until recently, we were putting duplicate spine labels and barcodes on both the book and jacket. However, it is rare for a book to lose its jacket and we have now stopped the double labeling.
I have attached our policy/procedure document -- which provides background and rationale. Please let me know if you have other questions. There was also some recent discussion of the dust jacket question on collib-l@xxxxxxx list in May 2007.
~Carol ========================================= Carol E. Eyler ceyler@xxxxxxxxxxxx Head of Technical Services Carleton College Library 507-646-4268 voice One North College St. 507 646-4087 fax Northfield, MN 55057 =========================================
All,
Does anyone retain dust jackets on their books in their circulating collections? If so, do you use any product or system to cover the dust jackets? I'd love to hear about experiences, good/bad products, how much time it takes, do you label both the dust jacket and the book with the call number, etc etc.
Thanks so much!
Victoria Victoria Heiduschke Preservation Librarian Illinois State University Milner Library vheidus@xxxxxxxxx 309-438-7463
Attachment:
Dust Jacket Policy.doc
Description: MS-Word document