So we have some bookshelves in our living room. We also have very destructive dogs who like to eat hardbound books. The way the shelves are set up, we can’t easily at doors to the shelves, but we’d like some way to keep the books from being taken off the shelf… maybe something that’s kind of like a bookend, but sits in front of the books instead of on the sides, ideally with a transparent front.
Anyone have any suggestion for anything of this sort, or any other clever ideas?
Thanks
The first thing that comes to mind are sliding glass or plastic doors, or swinging doors with some kind of latch. Kind of expensive to install…
Your idea of bookends would work: take a bookend or a set of them, and mount a cut-to-fit piece of clear plastic to them.
Since that would block the view of some of the books, you could do a variant by fitting plastic to some narrow metal L-frames. These will still block the view of the books at the end of each row, but it’s not quite as obtrusive.
Maybe pieces of plastic, with a hinge at the top, so you lift it up to get at the books, and then let it fall again to protect them. And “hinge” can be as simple as a piece of fabric, or as fancy as real hardware hinges.
Sheets of transparent styrene are not too hideously expensive.
Then there’s triage… The good books go in upper shelves, and the lower shelves get the kind of books you don’t mind becoming tattered and torn! 
there is a style of book shelf where the glass/plastic door hangs from the top and retracts the top (similar to a garage door only a single piece only attached at the top). this could be added to just about any wood bookcase or shelving unit.
Get a cat
spray dog deterrent.
Those are generally called barrister bookcases; unfortunately, they’re kinda pricey and I don’t know of a good way to add the glass doors to existing shelving. You might add glass “French doors” to the front of your case, but odds are that’ll exceed the cost of the books and shelves. You may just have to empty the lower shelves until the dogs grow up.