Standing Tall – Caring for Book Spines

Books need support too. We often turn to our old favorites or new discoveries for lessons or relief in our lives, but those pages need our help. When the pages are bound together, they form a textblock and that textblock is attached to the covers at the spine. The spine is the back edge of a book that faces out from our shelves, and like our own spine, it holds the book up. Over time, those spines become more delicate and like our human spines, need the utmost care to prevent deterioration and damage.

Tips to Protect Those Precious Book Backbones

1. Store books of the same size together. When placing books on a shelf, place books of the same or similar height together to keep consistent pressure on the spines.
2. Books should be kept tightly together on shelves, but not too tight. When books are placed side by side, they should be snug together, but easy to remove. Not so loose that they flop or lean and not so tight that you cannot pull one out without tugging it. Try adding bookends when you have too much space. Bookends should be heavy and able to hold up books without sliding away from the weight.
3. Do not store other books or objects on top of one another. Imagine carrying a weight on top of your shoulders all day, every day. Eventually you would begin to sag from that weight and so will your books. When books are stacked, the ones at the bottom ones will often start to lean, especially if there is a lot of weight on top of it relative to its size. Except for large coffee table books, which are meant to be viewed on a flat table, books were designed to stand up on shelves.
4. Grip a book’s spine from the sides when removing it from the shelf. Pulling hard at the top of the spine can cause it to tear or detach from the textblock.
5. Properly open books to avoid cracks. With new books, first open the front and rear covers and then flip through the pages. Opening books too wide will cause cracks or the separating of pages from the textblock. Once cracks begin to form, the integrity of the spine is compromised and additional care (or even repair!) is required.
6. Always support book spines when reading by cupping the spine with your hand or resting it in your lap or on a surface. There are even book pillows specifically designed to support books for reading.
7. Finally, not all books are created equally. For one, paperback books were not designed to last as long as hardcovers. More than likely, creases will form along the spines of paperbacks. Book club editions are made with less durable covers and paper in order to keep production costs low. As a result, both paperbacks and book clubs do not have to same durability as their hardcover counterparts. Keep this in mind when storing and handling your reading copies.

Like our human spines, you can do everything to support your books spines, but unfortunately, over time, those spines will still become weaker and need extra care. Just like an 80 year old man has to take extra care to keep his body moving, an 80 year old book needs extra care to keep its pages turning. Also like our human spines, book spines were meant to be used, because books were made to be read, so do not be afraid to enjoy those beautiful pages. Along with your support, those pages could still be standing strong many, many years from now.