Priceless volumes stored carefully in protective sleeves

China's publishing industry is at the forefront of making sure that books are free from dust and germs.

Plastic wrappers, which used be limited to high-priced, easily damaged books, have spread to everyday mass-market paperbacks. A reporter with the Jiefang Daily describes the situation at a bookstore in Shanghai:

In the new book section on the ground floor of the Shanghai Book City, I discovered that apart from a few sample copies opened up for the convenience of browsers, more than half of the books were wrapped in plastic covers. A sales clerk told me that it used to be that only oversize photo collections and imported books were wrapped; the store was afraid that readers would damage the pages of those high-priced books and add to their operating losses. Most domestic publishers have gradually followed suit, and "clothing" books in plastic has become standard practice in the industry. Collapse, a book published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House that deals with environmental concepts, has been criticized by environmentalists for coming wrapped in non-degradable plastic.

Why clothe the books in plastic? Shanghai Literature and Art general editor Jia Zongpei said that open stacks in bookstores these days mean that books are easily damaged. This influences sales, and bookstores return damaged books to the publisher, increasing its own costs. The editor of Collapse described the book as an analysis of the environment as it relates to national and social development and the rise and fall of civilizations, written by Jared Diamond, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. Because of its large format and high page count, it is easily damaged during shipping or retail sale. To protect the book and lessen the waste of paper resources, the publisher took the step of wrapping it in plastic.

For readers, a book's plastic wrapper has become a way to determine whether it is new or used. A bookstore sales clerk said that books that aren't in plastic wrappers — naked books — get practically torn apart from constant flipping, so no one will buy them. And consumers will think a book isn't new if it doesn't come in plastic wrap. Conducting random interviews, I spoke to Mr. Li, who was buying books: "Books won't get dirty when they're wrapped in plastic. I always buy wrapped books. If a book doesn't have a plastic wrapper, I don't want it." Ms. Wang plucked a plastic-wrapped copy of Dancing Through Red Dust (原谅我，红尘颠倒) from a pile of books. She said she felt that the plastic wrap had a psychological effect of communicating that the book was new and untouched.
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According to an industry source, the cost of book packaging is tied to print numbers. For books with a small printing, it costs around 0.1 yuan to wrap one copy. This drops to a few fen with larger print runs. Nevertheless, many publishers are willing to pay this extra sum to insure the neatness of the cover and pages of a book, instead of having to endure the headaches of having them damaged during circulation.