I've decided it's finally time to buy some covers from my books. I was looking at Brodart's website and they have two materials; polyester and polypropylene. I'm sure the polyster is what we're used to seeing since it does not stretch. They recommend it for circulated volumes. The polypropylene is a "soft, flexible quiet material" that is recommended for personal collections. I don't believe I've ever seen the polypropylene covers, but it's what they're recommending in my case. Anyone else have any experience with these?

-Brian

After some more searching I found a link to an older guide from Brodart about choosing a cover. http://www.usedbookcentral.com/brodart/2005SelectingBJC.pdf It's obvious from this guide that the polypropylene covers are not archival quality. In fact only the Adjust-a-Fold III and Archival Fold-On are archival safe. Too bad becasue the polypropylene covers are less expensive.

-Brian

Since Used Book Central has closed its doors, you might want to look at Brodart's web site http://www.shopbrodart.com/. All the information is available there. It's a booger to navigate, though.

I would call this a user-hostile web site.

I started at Brodart's site, and like you said, it's a booger to navigate. They have an online tool and a pdf file that supposedly help you choose the covers best suited for your application but they weren't really of much help. I did a google search and ended up finding the pdf that I provided the link to. It appears to be an older version of the Brodart document to help you choose the correct cover but it's more helpful than the newer one on Brodart's site.

After all of this I've decided I'm going to go measure my books and order 1 or 2 rolls of the Adjust-a-Fold III covers.

That's probably not a bad idea. I may do the same thing. I was figuring that the bulk of my books are 12 inches or smaller. I might order 1 package of 25 14 inch covers as well.

Lately I've been purchasing my Broadart covers from an eBay vendor named Pages LLC-USA. Good prices and fast shipping--here's a link:

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Pages-LLC-USA__W0QQ_armrsZ1

I did a bit of price searching using Google and eBay when I was initially looking and didn't find any great deals. I just checking again, including the link that Donal provided. It turns out that the best deals are directly from Brodart. Here's what I found. All of them are for Adjust-a-Fold III 10" rolls. The eBay seller sells an odd size so I've listed what you can actually get and the price per foot. The price + postage is listed. I live in Oregon so the postage might be slightly different for you since they use UPS Ground.

eBay Seller, 50 yard roll, $36.95 + $15.40 = $52.35, $0.349/ft
Brodart, 100 ft roll, $23.75 + $8.17 = $31.92, $0.3192/ft
Brodart, 300 ft roll, $48.75 + $13.03 = $61.78, $0.2059/ft

Hopefully this info will be useful for someone else.

-Brian