Replacing Damaged DVD cases... leads to an interesting tech services discussion

 I haven't posted for a bit.  I got a bit lost in the weeds having discussions with various tech services librarians I've worked with over the years.  Initially, I contacted them to ask what they do when the cover art from a DVD case is so damaged that it needs to be replaced.  In talking about this practical issue, many other discussions and issues arose.  These will be topics for exploration in future blog posts.  However, for today, I'll go back to the original question which was what libraries do when they need to replace damaged cover art.

First of all, each librarian or library tech I spoke with described a different approach for dealing with the problem.  So, this being said, if any readers deal with the problem in a different way, it might be useful for other readers if you share your approach in the comments section for the blog.

Second, most libraries do try to replace the cover art somehow but not all make the attempt to do so.  Some just use Word to create a new cover which contains key information.  In one case, the replacement cover only has the name of the movie.  When I worked in a public library, we also tried replacing the cover art by inserting a piece of paper with the title of the movie typed on it into the case.  The circulation dropped off for those movies.  I suppose that the decision to make the extra effort depends on how important getting the DVDs to circulate is relative to the time it takes to make a more attractive case.  I can understand how some libraries may simply not have the staff time to do more than the absolute minimum they need to do in order to get that DVD back to the shelf.

Third, DVDs are not equally popular at all libraries.  In some libraries, the popularity of DVDs has dropped off completely.  Those libraries are likely to just weed out the DVD that has damaged cover art.  On the other side of the spectrum, some libraries have an extremely popular DVD collection which has become increasingly popular in recent months.  So, they want to make the most of their DVD budget and are willing to take the time to replace damaged cover art.  There is a subset of libraries where patrons currently request DVDs via the OPAC rather than browse the shelves.  This is mostly due to COVID library access restrictions.  While the staff at these libraries didn't specifically tell me this, it seems that the cover art on DVD covers is not all that relevant seeing as patrons are making their selection based on the record for the DVD they see in the OPAC.  This is an interesting point for those readers who are cataloguing and metadata librarians.  We sometimes have a hard time getting library management to value the work we do.  However, for those libraries that are not fully open due to COVID, what patrons can find in the OPAC or library website and how the records display is critical for access to the collection and, thus, the need for high-quality catalogue records and other metadata is more important than ever.  

Fourth, a few academic libraries don't even transfer the cover art from the original DVD packaging to the specific type of case that the library uses.  Thus, all of their DVDs look the same.   There is a template for creating a DVD case cover that contains relevant information about the DVD.  These covers sound very bland and unattractive.  However, academic libraries are different than public libraries and this approach makes sense in the academic context.  So, for some libraries, the issue of replacing cover art is completely irrelevant.  The original cover art was put into the recycle bin when the DVD was processed for the library.

Fifth, for those libraries that do replace the cover art, there are just about as many approaches as there were libraries I contacted.  There were three overall themes in the approaches.  The first theme was that the library reproduces cover art from content that they already have in their collection.  One library that has a very large collection, the cover art was replaced by scanning the cover from another copy that the library owns and printing out the scan on a colour printer.  Another library took the same approach but just used a black and white laser printer because they felt that the results were easier to read if a laser printer was used versus the relatively low-quality inkjet colour printer that is available to the library.  

The second theme is that the library would create or recreate new cover art.  In one case desk staff located some sort of suitable related Creative Commons image in a source such as Wikimedia Commons  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.  In tech services, the staff took the image and inserted a title and other relevant information and printed out a new original cover to insert into the case.  At another library, there is one staff member who is very skilled with Photoshop.  She scans the damaged cover and repairs the image digitally and tries to make it as close as possible to the original before printing out a replacement cover.  Processes that fit into the second theme sounded very time-consuming to me.  However, I suspect that once a person does this process enough, it could become much more efficient than what I imagine.

The third approach is to locate an online source of images for DVD covers and print a new cover from one of those sources.  From what I've been told, no one source has all DVD covers so most libraries have a selection of different places they check.  In addition, not all libraries printed the new covers in colour.  The issue of the availability of a good quality colour printer was the most central issue.

Here are some of the websites that libraries who take the third approach mentioned to me that they use.  I've listed a few that I tried for myself:   

https://dvdcover.com/

This is good but to get the best covers you have to get a subscription.  While you can copy the image into Photoshop or a Paint program for free, the resolution is terrible.

 

https://www.covercity.net/

Describes itself as a cover replacement service.  You need a membership.  I was able to download some covers for free.  The selection of covers seems to be limited.

 

https://www.dvd-covers.org/

Resolution not too bad when copied into Photoshop or paint but a very limited selection of covers.

 

IMDB.com

Their code numbers are widely used on other sites too.

RottenTomatoes.com covers most recent movies, with links to lots of reviews.  For artwork, a screen capture generally does the job.

So, if you know of other websites or have an approach that I didn't describe in this post, please feel free to add what you do in the comments.

While I may not post as frequently as I had been in the past month or so, I will get back to posting at least a couple times a week.  I'd like to address some of the issues that the tech services staff I got in contact with mentioned to me.  I suspect that many libraries have similar experiences.

As always, if there are things you'd like to see in the blog, please feel free to contact me and let me know.

Have a great weekend and stay safe.