You have to be impressed with a publisher that takes the time
to respond to a curmudgeonly gripe. And
so, according to the response to yesterday’s blog post, the Library of America
has not changed the paper of their dust jackets—just the coating on the paper.
Which raises the interesting existential crisis for the
day. The Library of America notes that
the changed cover is a technological improvement. It’s progress. And, so here I find myself (yet again)
standing athwart history, yelling “Stop!”
I like the old glossy paper. LOA
says I will grow to like the new scuff-free matte finish. Suddenly I wonder if my wife secretly works
for the Library of America.
I habitually dislike change.
Janet (my long-suffering wife) is always merrily relating story after
story (after story) of changes in my life which I instinctively disliked, but
grew to love over time. So, when LOA
insisted that given time, I will like the new covers better than the old, my
blood froze.
Also worth noting—the reply by Library of America says they
made the change in coating years ago.
So, I checked my books. My three volume
Philip Dick set has the old coating, and it is recently published. Then I noticed my Vonnegut volume (the
1963-1973 one) has the new matte finish—I hadn’t noticed (I haven’t read it
yet). Which then caused me to wonder why
the change was immediately apparent when I got my Bierce volume but not when I
got my Vonnegut volume.
All of this has reminded me of something I have occasionally
lamented. As noted many times here in
the past—I own a lot of LOA volumes.
Every now and then, I end up with one without a dust jacket. The volumes look good without the dust
jacket, just not as good. I’ve occasionally
toyed with the idea of buying a new copy to get the dust jacket—but that seems
a bit pathetic, and quite honestly, it isn’t worth that much. The dust jacket market is the sort of market
that would collapse under the weight of the overhead to even offer the
product. Sigh.
In the end, I will begrudgingly forgive the Library of
America for changing the gloss. (I am
sure there are enormous sighs of relief and great rejoicing at LOA headquarters
right now.) I’m still not happy with the
change, but far be it from me to resist progress.
Thanks for your follow-up post! We are really quite grateful that you like the "standard" jackets. Ironically, for years we had received complaints about the old lamination: from some readers who felt that it was too “plastic” (which is accurate, since it IS plastic) and from other readers who remarked that it was too similar to the coating used for college textbooks (which, again, it is). In addition, high-gloss lamination will often peel back from the paper when exposed to sunlight or heavy use or just the passage of time (just as it will on membership cards and similar materials).
ReplyDeleteWe are always searching for ways to make our books last longer. This is actually the second time we’ve change lamination; the first gloss lamination we used caused the white stripes and calligraphy to turn yellow after a few years. (Not pretty.) The decision was not made lightly; we understand that some readers may not like the change, but we hope that in time everyone agrees that the new finish does indeed hold up better.
By the way, since the new lamination changes the appearance of the black slightly, we decided that we would continue using the full-gloss coating on subsequent volumes by authors published previously in the series. Thus, the last Philip K. Dick volume used the “old” lamination to match the first two volumes. For now, anyway, we’re only using the newest lamination on authors who are “new” to the series.