What dimensions of Easton books make them too large for vertical display?

I'm curious about how big/wide is too big for vertical (vs. horizontal) storage, to protect from page/binding sagging. Some of the 100 greatest are pretty thick (Monte Cristo and War and Peace come to mind). What about the Monte Cristo DLE - is a tall book/coffee table size book also meant to be laid flat on the shelf? And what about the Wyeth Easton adventure series, or the DLEs in clamshells (I'm worried that the book might get ruined by the clamshell pressure on the bottom)?

I did a search on this forum but couldn't find specific advice for different book sizes and dimensions (just large vs regular).

Edit - reread ur post and realized I misread it.

My experience is that it has more to do with thickness than vertical height. War and Peace is definitely a sagger lol. I’ll routinely flip the thicker ones, upside down for awhile. Not sure if that really helps or not 😏

>1 Ar40: I purchased Styrofoam poster board at Office Max and cut (razor knife) book supports for my heavier and thicker books. The boards are perfect thickness for this use. One board will easily handle your top 40 heavy books. As an aside Franklin used to send out book supports with their very thick books; too bad EP does not do the same.

>3 HugoDumas:

That's a great tip! I was going to try and buy foam board for this but never got around to it.

I would say around 3"+ in width is when I start considering storing books sideways.

>1 Ar40:
It’s hard to generalize because the thickness of the book and it’s weight both come into play. The page blocks on some of the large books I’ve had for many years (e.g., Faerie Queene, Homer DLE, Crusades DLE) sag a little but not enough to touch the shelf. Huge volumes like the 1611 Bible DLE and the Kelmscott Chaucer sag more. None of them show any sign of pulling away from the binding, though. If it bothers you, the only solutions I know of are to shelve them flat or to try >2 GOBOGIE: ‘s idea of turning them upside down half the time or to use >3 HugoDumas: ‘s foam. I think you’re right that the pages will sag inside a clamshell or slipcase just as badly as outside it.

Personally, I shelve all of them upright and let them sag, but perhaps I’d feel differently if I intended to resell them some day.

>3 HugoDumas: Posted this in the Franklin Library group, but it's relevant here as well. Here's what the FL supports look(ed) like:



And here's a group of foam core supports I trimmed out quickly, using a "standard" length of 5 1/2":



I did these for all the books, because it was easy and because I didn't want to bother deciding which ones should get them versus not.

>6 dprendergast: what a great idea!

When you place a book upright, you immediately put more strain on the bottom than the top - there is really no way around it, it's just basic physics. ALL my books are always laid horizontally which results in no sag. I've heard some people say "but doesn't that cause damage to the spine?" and the answer is no. However, most of my books also have slipcases and any that do not, I do not place under a great deal of weight. Lastly, I also find that storing books horizontally is the most space-efficient :)

Wouldn't the sagging of a page block be an example of creep? The pages, fibers, and glue are relieving the stress of gravity's pull on the page block through strain - by pulling away from the boards near the top of the spine. Once the sagging is arrested by the touching of the page block to the shelf, the system is static and the sagging is complete. But during the sagging process, shouldn't the strain be at a maximum at the top and the stress (or pressure) a maximum at the bottom? All non-linear, of course.

>8 astropi:
Interesting concept, if you do apply it to the entire library. I have found, by experiment and calculations, that stacking short thin paperbacks horizontally can save some space on a shelf.
With hardcovers, space saving is negligible. Let's say that a shelf is 12 inches tall, which is more than average height for a shelf. You need to leave about 2 inches of space at the top of a stack, to be able to access your books safely (for them). If your books are 8.5 inches tall, your stack will reach 8.5 inches before you start saving any space - so your maximum space saving in that stack would be 1.5 inches.
This is 1.5 to 2 inches of space-saving in return for discomfort of taking a particular book out from the middle or bottom of the stack. You would need to remove several books each time. This is not to mention that the books on the bottom of each stack will be stored under prolonged and significant pressure. This is not recommended by most book conservation specialists.

For books of thin to medium thickness there is no danger of sagging of pages. This is shown by books that are hundreds of years old. If there is a small sagging of pages after, say, two hundred years of vertical storage, I will take that over the discomfort of storing books horizontally.

It seems that foam supports as suggested above could be a very good solution/compromise.

>6 dprendergast: good job.