Books End-Processing of Cases

Owned by Lewis Day
May 18, 2017
2 min read

Books End-Processing of Cases
Material shelved at Houghton in several kinds of enclosures:

  • Prefab cases
  • CMI cases
  • Phase boxes
  • Cloth cases
  • Paper or other board cases
  • Slipcases


Cased materials should be end-processed in a consistent manner:

  • A spine label is added to the spine of the case, 1.5 cm from the bottom.

A spine label should not cover existing printing or content on the spine, and should be placed so as to preserve any data on the spine.
In cases where the spine cannot accommodate a spine label, this is placed in the upper left corner of the front of the case, 2.5-3 cm below the top of the case.

  • A barcode is added to the front of the case, .5 cm from the top.

Any spine label on the front of a case is affixed below the barcode.

  • A clear label protector is placed over the spine label, whether on the spine or front, and covers the label completely. The clear label protector should not be trimmed unless there is a compelling reason to do so.


Certain classes of materials are exempt from this procedure:

  • Any case produced as part of a numbered set.
  • Any case made of a material other than cloth or unillustrated paper.
  • Any case with artistic merit.
  • Any case which would be damaged by this treatment.
  • Any case made before 1900.
  • Slipcased material.
  • Material in telescoping cases.


Handling of cases not suited to labeling and barcoding:

  • Cases not labeled and barcoded may be placed in another enclosure, as appropriate, and on a case-by-case basis.
  • Telescoping cases, slipcases, and at-risk materials should be placed in either a CMI or phase box, as appropriate.
  • Cased materials which are not labeled and barcoded in this manner will be end-processed using tabs.


This procedure is in place for new materials, as well as extant collection materials which move through the end-processing stream for some other reason.
There is no plan to reprocess older materials.