Pest management

Enrico Flaiani <efl [at] iol__it> writes

>I am a book conservator in an archive in Rome. Because of the
>evidence of insects among our books a disinfestation was asked. The
>disinfestation company proposed us to use K-othrine 25 flow
>(concentrated suspension) (C22 H19 Br2 NO3) also known as
>Deltamethrin in water solution to be used as an aerosol. I have no
>documentation about the effect of such compound on  paper and
>parchment. Do anyone know anything about it? Are there better
>compounds to be used in disinfection?

The use of anoxic chambers to eradicate insects has become popular
as most people are not happy to be using toxic chemicals. Therefore
it might interest Enrico Flaiani that there is a company in Italy
which rents out portable machines which extract the Oxygen leaving
Nitrogen and other gases. The company provides plastic sheeting,
heat sealers and valves. After bagging the material the Oxygen
remover is locked into a closed cycle and begins to pump out the air
filtering out the Oxygen. We have never tried the equipment as
logistics made transfers over to the UK difficult. However they
advertise as having been used by the Marciana National Library of
Venice, to treat 200,000 books. The machine is called VELOXY
<rgi [at] mbox__ulisse__it>

Shad Mehmet
The British Library
Conservation Dept.
Training & Development

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:81
                  Distributed: Tuesday, April 20, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-81-013
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