Mold

Teri L. Herbert <herbertl [at] musc__edu>, on behalf of Karen Roth, writes

>The bound journal volumes in the medical library have developed
>mold, due to the humidity level in the library.  We've already
>had the air vents and ducts cleaned once and a fungicide
>"sprayed" in here. We're also planning on buying one or 2
>dehumidifiers since this problem will never be completely
>abated.   But I still need to clean the mold off the volumes.

UCSD has done a couple of massive mold cleanups in 1995 and 1997.
During the most recent, I consulted with Mary Lou Florian, an expert
on the subject.  Search the literature on CoOL you will see her
writings on the topic.

She verified that we must vacuum the books first with HEPA vac. Mold
is very fragile, not tenacious. (In our case we had to freeze the
books first to kill the booklice that were feeding on the mold!)

After vacuuming, the books were wiped with a 70% solution of ethanol
and distilled water we mixed ourselves (recommended by Mary Lou). We
saturated absorbant cloths cut in small pieces, and packaged batches
in ziplock bags.  Students wore gloves and worked outside in a tent,
wiping off the covers, spine, and inside around the edges of the
wraparound of the cover, and down the inside of the spine with a
Q-tip if necessary.

The 70% solution allows for enough water to hydrate the mold spores
so it will accept the ethanol.  There was very low odor, much less
then when we used lysol spray in 1995.  At that time our campus
health and safety didn't want the quantity of liquid around because
of the flammability. Student workers were given training and were
closely supervised. We also had to pay at a considerably higher rate
to get and retain good workers over the course of the project which
took about 3 months.

Julie Page
Preservation Librarian
UC San Diego

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:53
                Distributed: Thursday, December 17, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-12-53-001
                                  ***