[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] spine label printers

[Dan Scott]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Elisabeth Keppler <keppleep at forsyth.cc> wrote:
> Ours still look good, too.  We do cover them with Scotch 845 book tape which
> is UV-resistant, so that might help.

We found that the stock thermal labels, when exposed to sunlight or
fluorescent light (read: our entire library), faded quickly (under a
year), even with the tape on top (which I'm pretty sure I read
elsewhere can actually aggravate the problem).

http://download.dymo.com/dymo/user-guides/LabelWriter/LW450Series/UG/LabelWriter_UserGuide_en-US.pdf
says:

"""
Thermal paper labels, such as those printed by the LabelWriter
printer, are susceptible to fading in two ways:

• Exposure to direct sunlight, to fluorescent light for an extended
period of time, or to extreme heat will cause fading.
• Contact with plasticizers (for example, labels placed on plastic
ring binders) will cause fading.

In the original packaging, the shelf life for LabelWriter labels is 18
months. When labels are used
for short-term applications (envelopes, packages, and so on), fading
is not a problem. When labels
are used to label files in a file cabinet, fading is very gradual over
many years. Labels applied to the
edge of a notebook that is then placed on a shelf in the sun will show
signs of fading within a few
months.
"""

So we started using labels from http://durablelabelsondemand.com and
were happy with those; their thermal transfer mechanism results in a
much more robust label. At some point, however, a cost-cutting measure
came into place and we went back to the stock labels. (Insert
something about "replacing faded labels costing human time that could
be doing more valuable work" here).