How it all started

As I started collecting books, I found I would never be able to acquire many
of the books I wanted in jacket. I enjoyed the great jacket art and was in a
dilemma as what to do. I had met many collectors while building my own library
which gave me access to many great jackets. I decided to put my computer
and printing skills to use and create my own jackets. The results were popular
enough that I began offering these facsimiles to everyone.

I started making facsimiles for myself in 1995. In 1998, Black and White Books
offered to sell them on AbeBooks. Originally, I only intended to share whatever
jackets I had made for myself. However, it quickly became obvious how important
the archiving of these dust jacket images was for bibliographic and historical
reasons.

Therefore, in 1999 my focus shifted to archiving images of dust jackets and the
Dust Jacket Archives began. I quickly started scanning any rare or collectable
jackets I could get access to. Since 1999 I've been traveling all over North America,
Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Bahamas and Jamaica,
scanning whatever interesting collections I could.

During my travels I've made many good friends who were gracious enough to let
me access their collections and thus continue to add to the Dust Jacket Archives.
Without their generosity, the Archives would not be possible. I wish to give all of
you who have contributed a special thanks.

I spent over 20 years in commercial printing working with images in traditional and
digital pre-press departments and manipulating film and computer files for printing
on offset presses. I have found that the skills I developed during those years have
been a huge asset in achieving the results I want with these jackets. In June of 2001
I left the company I was working for to focus all my time on these jackets. In fall of
2002 I put together my web site and I had Black and White Books remove my
listings from AbeBooks.

As of December 2012, I have scanned over 40,000 different titles. If you include
variants and duplicates, I've scanned well over 50,000 jackets. Many of these will
never make it onto my website as some are too damaged to restore, some so
common that it is not logical to restore them, and some so obscure that I'm likely
never to get a request for them. However, these jackets are still an important
component to the Dust Jacket Archives.

Offering facsimiles of these jackets is how I support the Dust Jacket Archives
project and is a way that everyone can have access to these great jackets. People
order jackets for many reasons. They’ve been used as props in plays or movies
and for bibliographic resources. Family members of the authors or artists have
purchased them as well as publishers who wish to produce or reissue a book. I’ve
had magazines purchase them to use in a story they are running. However, these
jackets are mostly purchased by collectors who wish to protect their books with a
quality facsimile, allowing them to enjoy the artwork on a jacket they might otherwise
never see.