Book Care: The Book, The Sideline

by John Mutter, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 2/11/2004

For Bern Marcowitz and Margot Rosenberg, booksellers, authors and dog lovers, the need to care for books should be self-evident. "Margot and I love books," Marcowitz said. "And if you love anything, you take care of it."

When the two decided to open the Dog Lovers Bookshop a decade ago after careers in other industries, both were struck that few people involved with books--from publishers to readers--knew much about cleaning, repairing or protecting books. "When people have a dog, they want to know how to take care of it," Marcowitz noted. "When I buy a shirt or radio, there's lots of information on how to take care of them."

So the two began investigating and learned about book care, from dusting and putting on Mylar jackets to repairing tears and cleaning stains and spills.

Because much of their trade is in used and out-of-print titles, they had plenty of material to work with. They learned quickly and the results were good, Rosenberg told PW Daily. "The books were better looking, smelled better and looked better on the shelves. The feedback from customers was wonderful."

As a result, the pair decided to write a book about their new pet subject, first released in late 2002 and coming out in paperback March 1: The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers (Griffin, $13.95). The title mixes charming, amusing stories about dogs and bookselling with technical information about book care. The style is straightforward but elegant, sometimes hilarious, a tad arch and old-fashioned without being coy or out-of-date.

In a section on "bad manners," for example, they write, "There are still people who, no doubt unconsciously, wet a finger on their tongues to make page-turning easier. This appalling act transfers moisture, and worse, to the page. The book will rarely be damaged, but the next person to turn the page may come away with more than information or entertainment. Therefore, a few germ-related courtesies never hurt."

They give precise advice on how to pick up a book ("by all means avoid removing a book from the shelf by pulling at the top of the spine"), how to open a new book ("We've often likened it to a dog getting out of bed in the morning, not with a bound and a leap but with a leisurely extension of spine and limbs, and a satisfied wag of the tail"), what to do when a book gets wet and definitions and recommendations for everything from the proper erasers to "a good dog" ("Of course, you can clean and repair books without a dog at your side or your feet, but we don't recommend it").

Not surprisingly, the authors also supply an extensive bibliography as well as notes on suppliers, book arts studies, pertinent Web sites and more.

Early on in their book-care education, Marcowitz and Rosenberg discovered Brodart, which, among other products and services, sells book cleaning and preservation supplies, including the Mylar clear book jacket covers created by founder Arthur Brody and used by most libraries. In The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New, Marcowitz and Rosenberg recommend Brodart highly. For its part, Brodart was so impressed with the title ("they said we didn't make any mistakes," Marcowitz noted proudly) that it recommends the book on its Web site and in informational literature.

Now the relationship has deepened. Late last year, Brodart, which has been expanding into new markets, hired the two as marketing and public relations consultants to help Brodart expand into what it calls the "reseller and consumer markets." Marcowitz and Rosenberg plan, as the company puts it, "to share with other who love books their firsthand knowledge of the benefit of using Brodart products."

The pair see all kinds of opportunities. First, publishers could benefit. "Most publishers say returns must be in resaleable condition," Marcowitz said. "But publishers are not educating the people who are reselling, and everyone's losing god knows how much money."

Booksellers can learn how to maintain new stock--to improve its look for customers, to increase the quantity of acceptable returns--as well as upgrade the quality of the growing amount of used and oop stock the average bookseller is carrying these days. "Sometimes booksellers have to protect books from customers who smoke or hold the books with dirty hands," Marcowitz stated. The pair also recommends display copies have a plastic dust jacket.

In addition, Marcowitz and Rosenberg see a market for book collectors. "The dust jacket is very valuable for collectors," Marcowitz noted. Rosenberg added, "Like other products, books are something many people want to give to their grandchildren someday. They should take some steps so that they will inherit them in good shape."

Thus, the pair recommend booksellers set up "book care centers" in their stores and offer Mylar jackets and cleaning supplies. "It's a way of servicing customers and showing the bookseller is a professional," Marcowitz said. He added that "people love being able to get plastic covers for their books, covers they thought were only for libraries." Booksellers could recommend covers for "high end titles," he continued. "For an art book, they could say, 'You've just purchased this expensive book. Here is information and material about how to care for it.' " This could be very important, too, for the many people who "buy books not for the content but for the way they look. They're decoration."

With Brodart's help, the pair is giving out "one-page informationals" to booksellers and recommending they be distributed in-store and through book clubs and book fairs. They're also approaching booksellers associations, antiquarian book associations and other groups.

Rosenberg said she believes booksellers can learn to take care of books "incrementally." They can start, she said, "with routine dusting, a shelf at a time. There's no need to close the store. They can do a little today, a little tomorrow, and factor it into bookselling life so that it becomes as natural as washing the front window and taking in the mail in the morning."

Marcowitz and Rosenberg may be reached at P.O. Box 117, Gracie Station, New York, N.Y. 10028; 212-369-9663; or via e-mail.