If you collect artbooks, you probably don’t want them to be scratched or used. Thus, it’s important to protect it.

There are three big enemies for a book : fire, light, and humidity. But it’s also important to protect them from scratches, if you plan to often manipulate the books.

I recently found a good way for this. I ordered book covers of a brand called Demco. This cover sold by rolls or sheets should be stuck with tape, but I fold it like a classic cover, and this very efficient !

Be careful : there are several thickness. It’s not a problem if you take the less thick but it may be too much flexible. So, I recommand you to take the most thick you can find (4-mil seems to be perfect but I don’t test it yet). For example, I have sheets about 50 micron (2-mil), and it’s not very thick.

This is the product I am currently using : http://www.demco.com/goto?BLS166675&ALL0000&es=20140401153313151698

I don’t use the sticky parts because I only fold cover around my artbooks :).

Here how I do. You need

• A sheet of Demco book cover (Superfold 12XL” model for me) ;
• Scissors ;
• A cutter ;
• A pencil ;
• A ruler ;
• A bonefolder (optional).

It’s very simple : fold the sheet at the correct sizes. Don’t forget to make a flap at first ! You should have 4 folds like in the scheme below :

Use the scissors and the cutter to adjust the cut according to the books’ size. The ruler helps you to measure the correct values and the bonefolder (or the ruler again) is a way to crease correctly the folds.

Here some picture of the process. It’s not so difficult, hence the pictures won’t probably help you more that what I wrote before :). Don’t forget to take off the white paper protector when it’s done.