I told Pierce a thousand times, I never wanted to meet LeVar in person! I just wanted a picture. You can't disappoint a picture! I hate you Pierce!

Nope I'm US based but my work has me traveling around to lots of poorer countries. Unfortunately for them the most important books are the ones read often, not historically significant. So if no one has checked out a 1st edition of catch 22 or whatever other incredibly rare and valuable book, those are marked for destruction.

It's incredibly sad but understandable, you have limited resources/space and 100 people want to read 50 shades of gray while 1 person in 30 years has checked out 20,000 leagues under the sea. Which do you keep on the shelf especially if your library job is government appointed and you don't care much for literary history.

If you ever travel in 3rd world countries I highly recommend visiting any public or local libraries, especially older ones established during colonial times. They can be treasure trove of books you may get for pennies or even free because they just want to get rid of them.

Totally makes sense, the thing is I travel for work and you would not believe some of the books libraries are destroying and selling for pennies just to not deal w them anymore. First editions of Jules Verne, Pynchon, Dickens limited reprints from 1880 etc. It's absolutely wild and sad but I try and save as many as I can when I can.

So I'm thinking for books like those I won't bother touching them and have a professional remove the plastic and touch it up. May be worth it for a 100 year old first edition or things like that.

I travel a lot for work and you would not believe some of the things being destroyed because they either don't care or don't have resources to preserve them, just a few recent pickups include:

• a First edition UK printing of the crying of lot 49 -A first edition of ritual by pinner -A first UK edition of Jules Verne's the Danube pilot -A limited of 1000 (mine is 799) edition of great expectations printed in 1880

It's absolutely heartbreaking to see how these books are treated if you don't get to them in time.

Also thanks, I generally leave them on also but I've been curious recently. Maybe I can have a professional in restoration do it so I don't screw it up.