Well, I guess I have two problems. One of them might even be called a complex – I put a lot of effort into keeping my books in good condition, and this usually involves using small pieces of scotch tape to hold the slipcover in place (almost like you see with library books). If I get a new book and it comes with an 帯 (that paper strip that winds around the bottom), I’ll usually tape that as well so everything is held together and won’t slide around or get torn.
All that leads us to today, when I got in my physical copy of 本好きの下剋上 to find…this.
Yikes! That’s pretty big and it super distracts from the handsome cover art. In the past all my books have had 帯 that are pretty unobtrusive or match with the actual cover itself, but this one doesn’t do either.
If I take it off there’s an immediate improvement…the only thing is that now I have no idea what to do with it. Put it back on the book when I’m not reading? Fold it up and conceal it under the slipcover? Throw it away?
When they’re ugly and ad-like (like that one), I just throw them away, no regrets xD
I tend to throw away the other ones too, unless I really like the way they look with the cover, but sometimes I feel bad about it afterward. xD They’re just annoying to me - you can’t really keep them on while reading the book (well…you can, but they slip around and generally get in the way, and it’s easy for them to get torn - never thought of taping them to prevent that, but I don’t like the idea of taping anything to a book cover, personally, and I feel like they would still end up getting little tears at the edges ). At the same time, I don’t want to bother keeping track of them unless I feel like they add something to the appearance of the book.
Sometimes I use them as a bookmark while reading the book, if I don’t have another bookmark handy. If I do have one I want to keep, I usually fold it in half and tuck it inside the cover of the book. I have no idea what you’re actually supposed to do with them xD
What? People throw these away? It feels like part of the book/cover to me, even when it’s ad-like. I take off the 帯 when reading the book, and then I put it back on once I’m done and storing the book back on my bookshelf. I used to take off the cover itself while reading too, but I eventually realized that oils from my hands were damaging the spine of the book (the text was rubbing off), so now I read with the cover on.
Yeah, obi annoy me. They flap all over when I’m trying to hold the book, and I’m constantly getting them snagged on things when I put them down. For even more fun, my copies of Harry Potter came with two obi, one on top of the other.
I don’t want to throw them away, but if I take them off, I may forget to put them on again - just found one from Yuru Camp sitting next to my book pile.
It depends on what you plan to do with the book later. If you are thinking of selling it back, I have heard that BookOff, for instance, slightly reduces the value of books without 帯.
In my experience, while volumes in a series that had no 帯 have systematically valued less (I was curious, so I checked), it can be due to other confounding factors, so I’m not sure. Still, I have seen a correlation.
If you are only keeping the book for yourself, though, I don’t see any reason of keeping it if you don’t like it.
This is where I’m coming from too but I guess I’ve never had one that was this incongruous with the actual cover art? I’m feeling like maybe I’ve developed an attachment to them that I wouldn’t have if I’d gotten these large ugly ones on my first few books.
I’m leaning this way myself, yeah… particularly because
I don’t have any plans to sell the book right now (and if I did it would likely be on ebay or something, since there’s no bookoff or similar near me (a sad state of affairs indeed).
I think for now I’ll go ahead and tape the cover down without it, and keep it around just in case I want to put it back on when I’m finished reading.
I always end up keeping them. Even the ones that are just ads that totally don’t add anything to the cover, I feel obligated to keep them. But I hate stuff flapping about while I’m reading, so I always take the obi and dust jacket off my books when I’m reading. I put them back on when I’m done, but I just have a ton of obi and dust jackets laying around in my room. And naked books of course.
I always keep my CD obi too. I keep them in a box under my bed. Nice and neat. I don’t know why but…I can’t throw them away.
). At the same time, I don’t want to bother keeping track of them unless I feel like they add something to the appearance of the book.
If I do have one I want to keep, I usually fold it in half and tuck it inside the cover of the book. I have no idea what you’re actually supposed to do with them xD
(And then put it back if it’s not all bent and ugly)
But I hate stuff flapping about while I’m reading, so I always take the obi and dust jacket off my books when I’m reading. 
I put them back on when I’m done, but I just have a ton of obi and dust jackets laying around in my room. And naked books of course.