ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** Hi Martin and all- We have a number of books that travel with two of our exhibitions, "It's a Nano World" and "Too Small To See" that have held up remarkably well. It's particularly nice for those exhibitions, all about things that you can't see, to include some picture books for young children and some books targeting older kids, for interested parents and kids. You walk by and the books have moved around, so people do read them to their kids and by themselves while waiting for their kids. We've got nice seating areas too, which also helps. We laminate each page in the book individually, leaving maybe 3" of extra laminating material to the left (the binding side) and trimming the other three sides to leave 1/4"; we use 5mil laminating material that goes through a heating element. Then we make a pair of wooden boards out of ~1/2" thick quality plywood, that are maybe 2" wide and as long as the book is tall (rounded, sanded, and polyurethaned of course). We stack up the pages, and sandwich the plain part of the laminated page in-between the boards, then drill through the entire assembly, and finally hold it all together with bolts and corresponding recessed nuts that have very flat heads (Hafele calls them Screw nuts- page 391 of their furniture/cabinetry catalog; the bolt and nut take allen wrenches http://www.hafele.com/us/external/catalog/pages09/391.pdf ). When you turn the pages there's an extra 1" or so of plain laminating sheet that takes the brunt of the page-turning. This method with the wooden boards seems to keep the books from disappearing! After a year or two the front or back covers might have their corners bent some, but they look pretty good still. I"ll send you a digital photo- a picture is worth a thousand words. You can also put "return to exhibition" or logo stickers on the book cover before laminating. Kathy Krafft Exhibit Projects Director Sciencenter Ithaca, NY > > > Which protective systems have you found especially effective for > protecting books included in traveling or permanent exhibitions? Are > there different considerations for traveling vs. permanent exhibitions? > > Martin > > *********************************************************************** For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org. Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org. The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html. To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the message SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to [log in to unmask]