Feedback sought for article on removing odor from books

James Druzik <jdruzik<-a t->getty< . >edu> writes

>While
>the literature does support the premise that neutralizing acidity
>slows down more forms of degradation than acid-catalyzed hydrolysis
>alone (and this may reduce some odors), it is speculative that in
>any one case a "musty" odor will be corrected this way.

One of the unexpected results of deacidification can indeed be
reduced odor in books.  One of the findings reported by the Library
of Congress ("An Evaluation of the Bookkeeper Mass Deacidification
System", available on CoOL
<URL:http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/lc/massdeac/bookkeep.html>)
is:  "The treated books had no odor. Those demonstrating a pretest
musty odor lost that odor during the treatment process."

The combination of cleaning and neutralization provided by this
process is effective at reducing or eliminating some odors, although
books which are very musty or have a strong odor before treatment
may still retain this odor.

James E. Burd
Preservation Technologies, L.P.

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:33
                 Distributed: Thursday, October 9, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-33-006
                                  ***