Hungary's oldest library is fighting to save books from a beetle infestation

[bob1029]

Controlling humidity could be the simplest option. RH <50% makes it really hard for anything living to propagate in an otherwise "dry" space.

[exhilaration]

That works great for your basement but what's the impact of low humidity on ancient books?

[Iryna77]

When opening this I didn’t expect such an advanced level of insect infestation described in the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time. They have to remove about 100,000 handbound books and i guess bc of the age of some of these books the best treatment is oxygen deprivation but “the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed” after 6 weeks is not a promising statement

[ChrisArchitect]

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44552362

[dr_dshiv]

I 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)

[maxloh]

Although preserving the original copy is important too, I believe many of the risks could be mitigated if those books were scanned (or are they?).

[EGreg]

Reminds me of this: https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/366053/at-his-peak-pablo...

[funnym0nk3y]

I'm surprised that they use such a tame method for eradication. I expected the use of huge loads of insecticides.

[chmod775]

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".

[pedalpete]

I'm dealing with a carpet beetle infestation at my house which is eating my furniture (natural fibres and horse hair).

Insecticides will damage the natural fibers. The risk is that they damage the books more than the beetles would.

Insecticide or desiccants directly on the books, for example the natural adhesives, could cause the adhesive to crack, destroying the book.

I wish I could do this sealed nitrogen process. At the moment, it's spraying cedar wood with lavender and sticking into the less accessible places where the beetles are likely burrowing, and vaccuuming regularly.

[mdavid626]

Any Hungarians here?

[aronhegedus]

Igen!

[endgame]

This isn't reddit.

[fonkyyack]

I'm doing my part!

[tomhow]

We've banned this account. Please stop creating accounts just to break the guidelines.