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Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about stuffing the books in a freezer? Apparently this can kill both bugs and their eggs, although I'm not sure it works on the particular kind of bugs in these books: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/orpifq/isitbu... Also there exist "ultra low" freezers which can bring temperature waay lower than the regular -20 Celsius. Like -80 or something. I doubt any bug or egg can survive such environment, a…
I do not doubt that freezing them would kill the bugs. I would be worried that unless it is very carefully managed it might damage the books though. In particular i would worry that moisture from the air would freeze on the books and as they are thawed they would get water damaged. Or that moisture trapped inside the bindings would form ice crystals and physically damage the books as they form. None of these are conc…
Well, it's an idea. Perhaps de-humidifying the books first...
The hypoxic approach needs to last at least until eggs hatch, otherwise you're back to square one. And I'm not so sure if a plastic bag can hold tight for long without leaking (nitrogen out, air in).
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#23Controlling humidity could be the simplest option. RH <50% makes it really hard for anything living to propagate in an otherwise "dry" space.
That works great for your basement but what's the impact of low humidity on ancient books?
You definitely wouldn't want to go all the way to zero. 30-50% RH is generally the sweet spot for archival purposes.
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could spray insecticides and kill some percentage while damaging the books further. Or you put them in a sealed environment with no oxygen, killing every single one of these beetles. I'm not sure that the more lethal option is "tame".
How about stuffing the books in a freezer? Apparently this can kill both bugs and their eggs, although I'm not sure it works on the particular kind of bugs in these books: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/orpifq/isitbu... Also there exist "ultra low" freezers which can bring temperature waay lower than the regular -20 Celsius. Like -80 or something. I doubt any bug or egg can survive such environment, a…
One potential problem might be that they have to treat the entire collection of 400,000 books at the same time (which makes sense because otherwise you risk rotating the beetles through the collection). So they'd have to find such an ultra-low temp freezer that was large enough to hold 400k books.
Also, although I assume this is a very rare ability among insects and probably not applicable to the "drugstore beetle" from this article, check out this insane fly species I found while looking for freeze tolerant insects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypedilum_vanderplanki It (or its larvae, anyway) can survive temperatures as low as 3K!
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about stuffing the books in a freezer? Apparently this can kill both bugs and their eggs, although I'm not sure it works on the particular kind of bugs in these books: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/orpifq/isitbu... Also there exist "ultra low" freezers which can bring temperature waay lower than the regular -20 Celsius. Like -80 or something. I doubt any bug or egg can survive such environment, a…
One potential problem might be that they have to treat the entire collection of 400,000 books at the same time (which makes sense because otherwise you risk rotating the beetles through the collection). So they'd have to find such an ultra-low temp freezer that was large enough to hold 400k books. Also, although I assume this is a very rare ability among insects and probably not applicable to the "drugstore beetle" f…
> One potential problem might be that they have to treat the entire collection of 400,000 books at the same time (which makes sense because otherwise you risk rotating the beetles through the collection). So they'd have to find such an ultra-low temp freezer that was large enough to hold 400k books.
They don't have to treat them all in the same place. They could use more than one freezer.
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not doubt that freezing them would kill the bugs. I would be worried that unless it is very carefully managed it might damage the books though. In particular i would worry that moisture from the air would freeze on the books and as they are thawed they would get water damaged. Or that moisture trapped inside the bindings would form ice crystals and physically damage the books as they form. None of these are conc…
Well, it's an idea. Perhaps de-humidifying the books first... The hypoxic approach needs to last at least until eggs hatch, otherwise you're back to square one. And I'm not so sure if a plastic bag can hold tight for long without leaking (nitrogen out, air in).
Most insect eggs require external oxygen exchange. Low oxygen treatment against beetles is a common method used for stored grains.
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not doubt that freezing them would kill the bugs. I would be worried that unless it is very carefully managed it might damage the books though. In particular i would worry that moisture from the air would freeze on the books and as they are thawed they would get water damaged. Or that moisture trapped inside the bindings would form ice crystals and physically damage the books as they form. None of these are conc…
Well, it's an idea. Perhaps de-humidifying the books first... The hypoxic approach needs to last at least until eggs hatch, otherwise you're back to square one. And I'm not so sure if a plastic bag can hold tight for long without leaking (nitrogen out, air in).
De-humidifying the books however could also damage them so I believe their solution is probably the best for this purpose.
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#28[flagged]
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#29Controlling humidity could be the simplest option. RH <50% makes it really hard for anything living to propagate in an otherwise "dry" space.
That works great for your basement but what's the impact of low humidity on ancient books?
The library also talks about having a huge mold problem, so it would likely be positive.
Re: Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation
#30I wish there was a tracker showing all the unscanned and untranslated books in the world. I was astonished to discover that less than 10% of Neo-Latin books have been translated (ie, most of everything published, from the renaissance to modern period)