Even with a heavy duty air purifier and regular vacuuming around the apartment, our book collection can be a pain to clean, gathering dust like a Katamari dustball. The books at the top of our bookshelves are especially hard to dust; we have to hold up the canister vac while standing on a step ladder to reach the top tomes. Using one of these book brushes might make clean up a little easier for those of us with a decent book collection...
The keen thing about the book brush besides it's book-mimicking form is the different heights of brushes to use across your collection (though we've been known to organize our books by their heights, eliminating the advantage of the brush). Ack, but at $80 each, we think we'd rather use a feather duster/vacuum combo and save the money for MORE books!
[via Better Living Trough Design]
Must-See Small Cool Homes: Week Two
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shaw's Original Fir...
How to Bake a Potato: Three Easy Methods
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
I love this! I'm always looking for a convenient/appropriate place to store the duster.
LOVE it. Dust is actually very harmful for books. Dust mites get into the pages and start muching on the starch left over from gluing/sizing.
Eighty bucks! I'll get a cleaning brush from Target for $3, thanks.
Like the floating book shelves before it, this looks like a good DIY project. Especially if you can find a book with a really good ironic title.
rather than buying a new item and just sweeping the dust around, why not use the brush attachment on the canister vacuum?
lisaversa: that's exactly what we do now, but admittedly for higher bookcases, it's not always the safest activity holding a moderately hefty item while balancing on a step ladder.
I should have mentioned that I'm not 100% a fan of the price tag - just the idea, and of keeping it tucked into the bookshelf for storage. :)
It seems to fling the dust into the air where it will only settle back on the books or other items in your house. You are better off with the vacuum hose and soft brush attachment, as unwieldy as it is.
Librarians I know rub the books with isopropyl alcohol--or rubbing alcohol--to remove the dust. It's usually a paper towel or cotton puff that holds the alcohol.
I agree that the item showed seems as though it will fling dust in the air, rather than removing it. But it's a worthwhile topic.
And a regular bench brush doesn't work, because...?
All a brush does is lift off the dust to settle right back down on the books or somewhere alse in the house.
That's why a small hand-held vacuum-cleaner with a flexible hose to pick up the dust and go into smaller spaces throughout the bookcase would be much more appreciated as a design/solution.
gregory:
I think Lisaversa means using JUST the attachment as a brush, not the vacuum.
piez: you're absolutely right in correcting me.