Efforts to Save Texts Damaged in German Library Fire

AshtabulaGuy writes “The Daily Telegraph reports that current preservation and recovery efforts with respect to the Weimar library collection are using new techniques pioneered in only the last couple years. Books that are damaged are being frozen to help mitigate water and fungus damage. Digital imaging efforts are also underway to try to preserve some amount of the heritage from the collection.

The article does note that much of the collection was never copied so things that cannot be saved may wind up being lost to the sands of antiquity.

An editorial from the Telegraph also discusses the Weimar collection hopefully being much like a phoenix to rise from the ashes in some part at least.“

September 14, 2004 by Uncategorized 1

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1 Response

  1. Lee Hadden says:
    September 15, 2004 at 5:28 pm

    Oldy and Moldy Library Techniques
    The H. H. Brimley Library at the NC State Museum of Natural History was sprayed with steam in the late 1970’s, and my first job was handling the problem. We used etylene oxide to kill the mold by placing the materials in a vault, increasing the air pressure with the ETO, and then heating the materials to encourage respiration of the spores. Modern methods are much better.

    Actually, we had an interesting system. We had six types of mold living on the documents. We had fungus beetles eating the mold. We had larger beetles eating the fungus beetles. We had brown recluse spiders eating the beetles. The windows to the library opened everytime the door was opened, and the pigeons from the park would reach in and grab the spiders. It was from the down on the pigeo’s breats that one of the mold species came into the library (or at least it was present on the feathers I collected). So we had our own little eco-system in the library. And we saved about 90% of the collection, which was much more than I expected.

    Good luck to the Weimar Library. We have come a long way in almost thirty years, and every challenge has it’s opportunities.

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