Moving house with a large book collection

Books are the densest thing most people own. A box that seems reasonable when it is half full becomes unliftable when it is full, and the damage done in a badly planned move is usually permanent.

This is the sequence that works.

Use small boxes, and mean it

The single most useful rule: books go in small or medium boxes only. Large boxes are for bedding and lampshades.

A medium box of hardbacks is around thirty to forty pounds. A large box of the same books is over sixty, which is beyond what most people should be lifting repeatedly, and beyond what the base of an ordinary carton will hold without failing.

A box that fails does so at the bottom, in mid-air, over a staircase. That is where the damage happens.

Rigid boxes for anything you care about

Cardboard is acceptable for a same-week move in dry weather. It is a poor choice for anything else, because it absorbs moisture, crushes under stacking, and its corners fail first.

Rigid plastic boxes with lids solve all three, stack squarely, and can be reused indefinitely. If books are going into storage rather than straight into a new house, rigid boxes are not a luxury — they are the difference between opening a box in a year and finding books, and opening it and finding a problem.

Packing order inside the box

Two ways to pack, both correct.

Upright, spines down against the bottom of the box, standing as they would on a shelf. Spines down rather than up protects the text block, and the fore-edges facing up are the strongest part to press on.

Flat, stacked, which is the right way for oversize and heavy volumes.

What not to do is stand them on the fore-edge with the spine up. That is the position that pulls a text block out of its binding.

Fill any gap. A book that can slide in a box will slide for the whole journey, and the corners take the impact. Paper, cloth or a spare item — anything that stops movement.

Heaviest at the bottom of the box, always.

Dust jackets and fragile bindings

For valuable or fragile books, wrap individually in plain paper or a soft cloth. Never newspaper — the ink transfers, and newsprint is highly acidic.

Leave dust jackets on. Removing them creates a second thing to lose, and a jacket packed loose gets creased.

Labelling

Two labels per box: what is inside, and which room it is going to. Write on the side rather than the lid, because in a stack the lid is not visible.

Number the boxes as well and keep a list. It sounds excessive until a box has not turned up and you cannot tell which one is missing.

Mark clearly which boxes are heavy. Whoever picks it up is entitled to know before they lift.

The day you arrive

Do not leave sealed boxes of books on a concrete floor. Concrete transmits moisture upwards and the box at the bottom of a stack in a garage is the one that will be damaged.

Get them off the floor onto a pallet, battens, or any shelf at all. Open the boxes as soon as there is somewhere to put the contents; a box is a temporary state, not storage.

If any of them got damp in transit, deal with that first. A damp book aired out within a day recovers; a damp book sealed in a box for a fortnight does not.

Books going into long-term storage

Different problem, different answer. Rigid sealed boxes, off the ground, in a space that is dry and reasonably stable in temperature. A heated spare room beats a garage by a wide margin, and both beat a basement.

Do not shrink-wrap. Sealing books in plastic traps whatever moisture was in them, and that is precisely the condition mould needs.

Label the outside with the contents, and check them once a year for musty smell.

Unpacking in a useful order

Shelve by height rather than by subject on the first pass, get everything upright and supported, and re-sort by subject later. Books standing properly supported on day one is worth more than books in the right order on day thirty, because the leaning is what damages them.

What we stock for this

Rigid stackable cases, clear project boxes and reinforced zip storage bags are on the book storage and cases page, with internal dimensions in the listings so you can work out what a box will actually take. Magazine files in the same group are useful for the loose paper that comes out of a move.

Everything ships from the counter on Huntington Avenue, and the shop is closed at weekends — worth knowing if a move has a deadline.