I have a half room full of service manuals. I have no idea how many thousands of dollars I have in them. Manuals for all types of equipment, engines, transmissions, cars, trucks, tractors..... list goes on and on.
When I had my shop, we used them all the time of coarse. The guys were allowed to use them, and take them out into the shop.... with one rule. They were NOT to touch them with greasy fingers!! They were to wipe off their hands (not wash them, just wipe them off) and turn the pages only on the edge. Now, that may sound like a no-brainer, but that's what it took. All those manuals are still in fantastic shape, except for a couple I loaned out. (Which I no longer will do.) I did however, have a flood in the shop near the end of the time I was in that building, that did get several of the manuals on the lowest shelf wet. Most of them dried out, but have a lot of mold on the pages, and have a few that are stuck together I recently found out. I may have to replace a few.... but that's to be expected, when the unexpected happens. I never would have thought my office would flood.... but it had about 3"-4" of water in it.
Point is.... you can keep a manual in good shape if you try. You didn't have to copy and make a whole new one. All you needed to do was take care of the original one. Don't leave it lying around the garage, and use clean hands to turn the pages. To each his own I guess.
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