Freezing wood and parchment

Walter Henry <whenry [at] lindy__stanford__edu> writes

>We have a largish choir book (late c18), manuscript on parchment
>bound in wood boards and discovered signs of recent insect activity.
>We have a blast freezer and for many materials would deal with this
>by rapid freezing to about -50 deg F, but faced with this object, my
>confidence flags and would be most grateful for advice...

When we dealt with the infestation at our Law library our entomology
department was very helpful; not only in identifying the beetle but
with supplying information about freezing. They often have to treat
their specimen collection when they are infested which means they
freeze whole cabinets full of drawers of dead insects!

There is a lot of literature in their profession about the treatment
of infestations. Would you, could you, have you contacted your
department at Stanford? Mary Lou Florian's article in LCN is
excellent as she discusses the procedure on a cellular level. In my
discussions with various conservators, there is some concern about
freezing both wood and parchment. The Getty has done some research
into this for their manuscripts. Good Luck,

Gillian
Book Conservator,
University of California, Berkeley.

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:34
                 Distributed: Thursday, October 3, 1996
                       Message Id: cdl-10-34-006
                                  ***