I purchase so many books for our home school that we literally have a small library in our classroom.  I choose to protect our investment with professional library supplies such as book jacket covers, and repair them the with same supplies that librarians use. 

The following is a very old email I sent to a friend who requested information about the library supplies I use to protect our books.  Other people keep requesting the same information, so I'll post the original email here. 

It gives some information about the supplies I use. The catalog information here is out of date.  However, I believe you can still find these supplies (and many more) at Vernon Library Supplies or Brodart.  I suggest that you order a printed (and up-to-date) catalog from both these suppliers and choose the supplies that best fit your family's needs.

For hardback books with dust covers, I tried to order the "Easy Fit Jacket Covers With Anchor Tabs" shown on page 5 of their 1998-1999 catalog; but they contacted me and said that for some reason the covers with the anchor tabs were no longer available. So I got the same thing without the built-in adhesive, and just secured it with scotch tape instead. I don't see that particular product listed, but that's what I got. I loved it -- easy to use, REALLY extends the life of the book, especially in little hands. (The customer service reps on their 800 number are usually very helpful -- they can tell you more.) Then, to secure the book jacket in place, I used the "Scotch 720 Film Fiber tape" (p. 6), or you could use the "Polyester-Fiber Attaching Tape" (p. 6). You'll also need the Plastic Bone Folder, p. 15, for fitting the cover to the dust jacket; spend the buck twenty-five on it -- it's much better than anything else I would have been able to find around here.

I ordered 25 - 10" covers, 25 - 12" covers, and 25 - 16" covers. That seemed to do fine for just about every book I had. But if you don't have any really big oversized books (I only had a few), you could get the 14" covers instead of the 16". Most of the books I ended up using the 16" covers for really could have done fine with the 14". But when you need the larger size, nothing else will do; so I got that for the few really big books I had, and I'm glad I did. Check your personal library first and see what you really need.

For paperbacks, I bought one 400" roll, 16.5" wide, of the "Reddi-Rolls 5 Mil Clear Non-Glare Matte Laminate". It works like clear contact paper, only it's made for books (I assume the adhesive will not corrode paper -- I wouldn't trust contact paper, myself). Also, the adhesive is not immediately permanent -- if you get an air bubble or make a mistake, you can reposition it at first. After several hours, it forms a permanent bond with the book cover. Again, the bone folder will come in handy here for smoothing it out. I got the 16.5" wide because I could use it on all different sizes of books -- small ones, I just turned sideways. Worked great. There was plenty on that roll to cover all my books for this year, with quite a bit left over. I liked it -- would use it again.

I also got samples of several other products. At the time I ordered, they would send out a single sample of any product I requested. I ordered samples of:

"Duraseal 250" (p. 8)

"Kapco's Easy Cover II" (p.8)

"One Piece Lyfguard Clear Cover" (p. 9)

"Crystal Shield Book Saver" (p. 9).

They all work great, but cost more per book than the Reddi-Roll. I wouldn't spend the extra money unless you will be handling the book throughout the entire year. In that case, they keep the book like NEW. I used the Lyfguard cover on my kids' Kindergarten Bible reader, and the Kapco on 100 Easy Lessons. I really like them both.

I had quite a few books that needed repair, too, so I bought several repair/prevention products:

Tyvek Super Hinge Tape, 1"x60yd, p. 16.

Bookguard polyethylene book tape, 1 - 2" roll, 1 - 4" roll, p. 17. free sample of the Book Jacket Adhesive, p. 6.

All these worked great, and are wonderful to have on hand. I used them to repair damaged books, and to protect new books (all still like new!). But don't order the adhesive in a full-size bottle until you've tried the sample -- it's VERY strong and VERY sticky. I didn't use it much.

I use quite a lot of cassette tapes with my NACD memory taps program, so I ordered some audio storage products as well -- audiocassette albums, p. 89, and Self-Stick Audio Trays, p. 91 (which stick the tape storage tray directly to the book -- VERY handy). But you may not have the need for these that I did.

Hope that helps! Again, their customer service reps are very nice, and very helpful.

It was quite a research project to go through all my books and find out just what supplies I really needed, but it paid off in the end. Lord (and bank account) willing, I'll use these products every year -- we just spend too much on our home schooling library NOT to.