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5 Ways To Care for Your Books and Keep Them Preserved Longer

For those who love books, a good book is more like a friend than a possession, something to be cared for and cherished. Others see a good book as valuable only if it is used, almost abused, and shows the age and wear of time and use. For these people, a good book should have a well-traveled cover, creases in its spine, highlighting of enlightening passages, and dog ears throughout. But for those who like to treat their books like treasures, keeping them secure and intact, ready to read another day, proper book care is important. Following are a number of tips to help you properly care for your books, many of these gleaned from the annals of the United States Library of Congress, arguably one of the greatest book repositories in the world.

Keep Your Books Clean

The Library of Congress houses a tremendous collection of old books, and they know how to care for them. Their top suggestions for caring for important books is to keep the books clean by always washing and drying your hands before touching them and never keeping food or drink on the same table, or above, your books. You also want to avoid oil (such as that found on your fingertips) and dust, which can wear away bindings, glue, covers and pages.

Avoid Humidity like the Plague

Humid conditions can give rise to a variety of molds and bacteria, many of which thrive on paper and leather. While a little bit of musty smell might feel comfortable and academic, the little microbes that cause this old book smell are very damaging to your treasure troves of information. Keep your books in a clean, dry place, preferably one that is temperature controlled and always cool. But don't let them get too dry, like in an attic, or the pages (and leather covers) can tear or even fall apart.

Handle with Care

We all love to buy new books, but caring for the old ones is really more efficient, at least when it comes to those books that have meaning for us. How you handle a book will promote its longevity. When you remove a book from a shelf, for example, grab the book carefully and firmly, with your hand wrapping around the spine, grasping cover to cover - never just pull at the spine or you could dislodge or damage the binding. When you open the book, especially an old hard cover, do not lay the book flat as this stresses the spine. Instead, prop the front and back covers up so that the book is only opened enough to read, not lying flat.

Pretend Your Books are Vampires

Light can have an extremely damaging effect on papers, pigments and inks. Keep your most precious books out of direct sunlight. And absolutely keep them away from open windows, ventilation shafts and other drafts or sources of humidity and dust. Visit https://www.alduspress.com/

A Closed Cabinet is Best for the Cream of the Crop

How you store your books, as far as location and stacking, is important. Lean your books on their side, straight up and down (not leaning to one side), so they are perpendicular to the ground. Place like sized books together so that the cover of each book is well supported against the next, and use large book ends to ensure the same on the ends. One of the most important things that you can do to keep your books protected is to place them in closed cabinets, in temperature and humidity controlled rooms, at a height where you must get a stool to access them, preventing anyone from idly grabbing a book and thumbing through it.

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Advantages of Books and Book Clubs

Being a wide reader can open your mind about the world and widen your imagination. It improves your skill as a person who is intellectually capable of understanding a lot of things. It is good that book publishing is a growing industry. Parents would prefer that their children read books instead of any other reading material. Children are going to benefit much from cultivating the habit of book reading because this will open up their minds to many different ideas about things and life itself. By encouraging your children to read, you are opening them up to a world of possibilities in terms of developing their personality, skills and talents. When you let them join book clubs, the process becomes easier and more enjoyable for them.

Child experts and psychologists actually encourage children to join book clubs because the experience will enhance their learning capacity and cultivate in them deeper interests in the different topics they can read about. When joining book clubs, the children are also taught the value of camaraderie and socialization. When your child starts reading, his mind is opened up to the world around him. Mental development is another advantage a child can enjoy with reading because the process takes some amount of intellectual activity. By reading often, the child's mind is sharpened.

Aside from that, memory and discipline are two other things the child will learn when he reads a lot. Of course, reading also enriches his vocabulary and the child will learn to converse with anyone fluently in any topic that he may have read about.

Another advantage of having your child join book clubs is cost. When buying from a book club, you can have the lowest rates. Your child will also have the opportunity to explore books that are of good quality and those that deal with topics that are applicable during the present day and time. In other words, aside from the mental exercise of the act of reading, your child will also have access to good books and those that are helpful to him as he lives in the generation where he belongs. Visit https://www.alduspress.com/

Surprisingly, even if books have existed in the ancient times, they are never obsolete. They are never defeated by any other media in any way because of their essence. Book appreciation is one of the most important things children must learn because it is through these books that societies have been made and progressing. Books open people's minds to the world around them. When you child has the opportunity to join a book club, he has the opportunity to discover life in ways that are probably not available to those who have never opened a book in their lives.

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Reputed Open Access Journals

Open access journals are academic peer reviewed journals that can be accessed easily without any financial or technical restriction. Readers can read and use the information of open access journals without paying any extra fees. Some publishers are known to take fees on behalf of the author, and some are supported by their academic institutions like universities, hospitals, libraries, research center etc. There are many international journals who publish fully accessible high quality articles and journals.

Reputed Open Access Journals

This is a list of some reputed open access journals. Following DOAJ and other directory of journals my recommendation is writers should consider this list and decide where they want to submit their articles.

BioMed Central: BioMed Central is publisher having a good number of peer-reviewed journals related to science, medicine and technology. BioMed published articles are easily accessible on their directory.

Co-Action Publishing: Co-Action Publishing is a publication with having multinational stuff representatives to publish quality peer reviewed journals.

SPRINGER: Springer is one of the world's most renowned STM publishers with having more than 200 Nobel Prize winners between the authors of their journals and books. The company has published more than 2900 journals and 19000o books.

Taylor & Francis Group: Taylor & Francis Group is one of the reputed open access journals for its high quality reviewing facility. The company publishes articles under the Routledge and Taylor & Francis imprints. The new part of this group is Cogent OA.

Cogent OA: Cogent OA is a part of Taylor & Francis Group. The company is reputed for publishing fully accessible peer reviewed articles.

Copernicus.org: Copernicus.org is recognized for publishing high quality peer reviewed journals. They promote scientific works. Therefore, researchers, who are dedicated to this specific subject, can review this publication.

Frontiers: Frontiers is an academic publisher who publishes peer reviewed journals based on science. The publisher was launched in 2007 and has a vision of building an open science platform. "Frontiers" is popular for combining fully accessible publishing with research networking.

Hindawi Publishing Corporation: With having 436 journals, Hindawi is a renowned academic publisher covering great disciplines and academic value. It is a reputed publishing company of scientific, technical and medical related articles.

Karger Open Access: Karger Open Access is a part of Karger Publishers. The publisher is recognized for scientific journals with maintaining high qualities. Journals are peer reviewed and publish in a high editorial standard in Karger.

Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI.): MDPI is an open access platform for publishing peer reviewed scientific journals. MDPI publishes more than 120 journals such as Molecules, the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Marine Drugs, Viruses, Sensing, Toxins, Sensors Marine Drugs, Energies, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Nutrients etc. Visit https://www.alduspress.com/

Journal of Biometrics & Biostatistics: A leading academic journal with having quality reviewing facility, Journal of Biometrics and Biostatistics is a well known openly readable journal.

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Open-Access Publishing Means More Collaboration

The research paper routine of those seeking a college degree has become increasingly tech-driven. Take a walk around campus libraries and you will find that many students are hunched over their computers, typing away, using electronic catalogue systems or reading an e-book. To the uniformed eye, it seems as if those students have better access to scholarly journals and research than ever before. However, that is not the case.

The Right to Research Coalition is an advocacy group that seeks to "educate and connect students about open-access publishing, and increase pressure on publishers and scholars to make their work freely available online." They represent about 5.5 million students worldwide and recently revealed their new website and blog in October.

The rising costs of college textbooks has continually been a point of contention for many college students, however, the costs of journal subscriptions has risen without much attention. The coalition leaders hope to give students a glimpse at how open-access publishing will impact "students' individual research and on scholarship around the globe, especially as cash-strapped academic libraries cut expensive journal subscriptions." Not only will this help traditional students with research, but it will greatly impact those students that take online classes that may have a harder time getting to a research library.

The director of the coalition, Nick Shockey merely wants to have a place where students can go and "learn about these issues." Shockey really wants "to start teaching individual students."

After a few student organizations drafted the Student Statement on the Right to Research, the Washington-based group, with the help of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, was established in June 2009. It was with this declaration by students for students that the advocacy for open-access publishing picked up steam in the classroom, while it had already been around in scholarly and librarian circles for years.

Since then, the support amongst students has increased substantially. More than 28 member organizations have joined, including the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, the American Medical Student Association and the United States Student Association to name a few. Mr. Shockey continues to emphasize the "great opportunity to act on the national and state level" when it comes to providing open-access publishing to students and to other scholars. Visit https://www.alduspress.com/

Mr. Shockey and the coalition hope to expand beyond domestic borders and reach out across the globe. For students and scholars that live "in countries where subscription and shipment costs restrict access to new research", this online element will open many doors of opportunities and knowledge. "Our goal is to disseminate this knowledge as widely as possible," says Mr. Shockey. It will also give online program students the ability to access information that might have otherwise been unavailable.

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An Introduction to Open Source Textbooks

Professors and students are calling for a textbook revolution. The truth is, the printed textbook is too expensive for ordinary students on a budget. The printed book industry has held a monopoly for decades and therefore, had the capability to make textbook prices rise exponentially. This is why open source textbooks are coming at a time when students are looking for alternatives.

The term was first coined to refer to software, meaning other developers can view and use the code for their own use. When you use the same word for textbooks, this means learning materials that can be viewed and edited by other professors for their own classes.

How Does it Work?

Open source material doesn't go through the rigorous writing, editing and publishing process that printed books do. It books the risk of not being properly researched before being used. Because of this, universities are leading the way to creating these learning materials that still keeps the accuracy of the information. Professors are being tapped and paid to write the content for open source books oftentimes supported by the university or other donors.

Professors can also make money whenever these materials are printed. So students and teachers looking for content to be used for classes, make sure you look for ones that are developed by universities to ensure the quality of content.

Because these types of books are developed and made available online, technology can be utilized by these forms of learning materials. For example, Apple has developed their own iBooks author, making it easy for anyone to design their own content to be viewed on iPads everywhere. Once an author is done with the open source learning material, they can be uploaded on "bookstores" or online learning databases to be accessed by students and professors. Open source materials are also being called greener as no trees are cut down to produce paper and printed books. A student or professor can just choose which ones to print.

Writers who are worried about copyright should also not be worried about licensing, as there are still options to protect their content. The main difference is that they can still choose to allow certain uses of their materials. For the Academe, being allowed to use these content for free can help professors enrich their lessons and make it more interactive and up-to-date, since there is no more waiting for new editions to come out.

In short, open source textbook adoption a win-win scenario for both professors and teachers. Information is available online, for a low price or for free, and can be used for personal or educational purposes. Visit https://www.alduspress.com/

Jules Mariano is a full-time freelance search engine and social media marketing specialist and a web developer specializing in web content development. He is the co-founder of VPRO Digital Marketing. He currently writes for BookGator.

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