Every book I order lately is getting warped terribly.  The delivery folks (USPS mostly) drop off packages at my door without knocking, and then when I bring the package in from the extreme cold to the inside of my house, which is warmer, the books warp badly.  I've tried letting them sit for several hours in the packaging in my living room before moving them to any warmer part of the house to no avail.

Have any of you had this issue? What did you do to fix it? It is Winter currently and I live in a very cold state (Ohio).  This is driving me insane.

If it were humidity alone, the answer is

Quote...store your book or album in a warm, ventilated spot, laid flat with something heavy placed evenly on top for a month or more, to allow it to adjust naturally to its new environment.

If it's temperature alone I can't guarantee results, but if it's temperature there's likely also some humidity issue so it's worth a shot.

I picked up a couple of humidity gauges.  The one in my game room where most of my books are stored is reading 21% humidity and 75 degrees temp.  The one in this office room is reading 20% humidity and 79 degrees temp..  This office room is where I've beenn storing most of my new books that have been warping lately.

Put them on a bookshelf properly and tightly. I was in a 98% humidity environment on a cold beach during the pandemic. Lost a few books and movie slipcases to the humidity. Books are made far more cheaply now than in the past as well, which is a bummer but it is what it is. My BESM Fourth Edition book's binding is already completely falling out of the hardcover and it's not even that old.

On the flipside, once I joked about how I needed a new copy of the 5E PHB because mine was faded and the binding was coming loose. A younger player looked at me and asked why-- he didn't even have his own copy. It put things in perspective for me. That said, if your new books are already falling apart on arrival, I'm not afraid to ask Amazon or DrivethruRPG for a refund and they're very good about that. One corner dent is to be expected, but if the book comes in a mangled mess, you can bet I'll be contacting them. Splatbooks all eventually warp and bend weird and I suppose it's because I've moved them around in various climates. They'll self-correct to a degree, but thinner paper is prone to waviness and such. You could actually try to get them more humid/flexible before putting them on a shelf, but you risk mold in very high humidity.

I'm in very low humidity.

I just went out and purchased a humidifier.  It states it can cover an entire house up to 2,500 square feet.  It can run 40 hours at a time.  Would I attempt to have this thing running at all times?

I've so far been at 21% humidity and 75 degrees temp in my game room and 20% humidity and 79 degrees temp in this office room.  I'm kind of afraid when I switch on the humidifier and adjust the temperature to around 70 degrees Farenheit it might be a big difference and cause warping on books that haven't yet warped. 

Any advice on how I should get started and run a humidifier from where I've been previously with the humidity and temperature?

I'd isolate it to one room with one 'test' book normally upright between two heavy objects and go from there. It's not going to be a huge noticeable difference at first, but high humidity for me seemed to make books more malleable and once I moved to a drier location most of them have flattened out. I don't know anything about humidity too low on books and I don't want to be the cause of further ruining. Here's some further reading by people more qualified than myself:

https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/LocalRecords/HumidificationandFlattening.pdf

I wonder now: does an enclosed package in strong weather actually act like a humidifier/dehumidifier chamber potentially? It makes sense.

Anyway, over the long run I'd just work to maintain a normal temperature and humidity level if you can. Re-reading your posts, your books are probably just really dry and microscopically shrinking. Paper is composed of fibers, not completely unlike clothing. My post above was a more quick and drastic solution with very high humidity levels. I'm currently in a place with 43% humidity and my books seem great at that.

Quote from: D-ko on March 02, 2025, 04:25:54 PMI'd isolate it to one room with one 'test' book normally upright between two heavy objects and go from there. It's not going to be a huge noticeable difference at first, but high humidity for me seemed to make books more malleable and once I moved to a drier location most of them have flattened out. I don't know anything about humidity too low on books and I don't want to be the cause of further ruining. Here's some further reading by people more qualified than myself:

https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/LocalRecords/HumidificationandFlattening.pdf

Thanks!

Up to 45% humidity should be safe for the whole room/office, but if you want higher/quicker I'd do something more like that, yes. My thinking process is catching up to itself. I've never thought much about ideal book storage conditions, though obviously it's important.

Also: apparently rapid changes are to be avoided. You might want to do any of this more incrementally than I've described. It explains why it's even happening in the first place, but it's not like we have package warmers yet, ha!

Also! Above 64% is the danger zone for potential mold. Redlining, if you will. You certainly don't want higher than that for normal storage conditions.

Like delicate clothes where you do blocking, you do pressing for books, as they come to temperature and moisture level of its storage location. Receive your books and immediately have them pressed by larger books, ideally with some give and no texture on the covers, so multiple perfect binded paperback rpgs -- or oversized art books!

Low humidity can cause problems, but having lived in drier deserts that'd have the pencil lead fall out the pencil and chewing gum dry out to the point of shattering upon dropping, that's not the typical distortion from a climate controlled home in an arid climate. What can do it is direct exposure to sunlight, causing expansion and contraction that ends up uneven pages. Cold air tends to hold less humidity. So it might be your house is where the book is re-uptaking the humidity. But it is doing so in an uncontrolled manner.

So doing the above should help. Read a book about bibliophile book preservation for kicks. This blocking technique becomes very important versus warping. Direct sunlight and a drafting brush -- sun for a few minutes then brush away each page gently -- is for sterilizing from potential mold, and that's a process that requires attending the book throughout its sunbath. There was a lot more for damaged books, too, but these two methods are core for good book maintenance. The last one is spiced fragrance, offset from direct contact due to volatile oil damage!, to keep away critters that like to eat through books.

Since installing the whole house humidifier I purchased yesterday, my game room where most of my collection is stored is reading currently at 31% relative humidity and 68 degrees temperature.  It doesn't seem to be affecting my home office side room though, where there are a decent amount of books as well.  The side office room typically has the door shut, likely leading to why it isn't having an effect.  This office room is currently reading at 20% relative humidity and 77 degrees temperature.  I might need to purchase a single-room humidifier for this room specifically.