Packing wet books

Gillian Boal <gboal [at] library__berkeley__edu> writes

>Quick and Easy packing for freezing? We have just had a medium flood
>in our Public Health Library. We had to pack and freeze dry 1200
>books.

I hope you already now have frozen all the books. In 1980 I had to
handle approximately 1400 wet books. The books were stored on
bookshelves and expanded as they became wet.  The bookshelves
together with the books were immediately taken to a freezer in the
premises.  You can read more about the process at:
<URL:http://www.ub.ntnu.no/fakbib/gunnerus/kleist2.htm> or if you
have Paper Conservation News no. 87 p 12-13.

If it's not possible to freeze the books together with the shelves,
I would just pack them in cardboard boxes as they stand on the
shelves, then the books can be freeze dried in a vacuum-chamber
together with the boxes.

As an alternative to freeze drying there is an article in Paper
Conservation News no.89 p 12-13 about vacuum-packing as a method for
drying wet books. I have not tried this method, but it seems very
interesting.

Soren Ibsen
Book- and paperrestorer
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
University Library of Trondheim
Gunnerus Library
N-7491  Trondheim
+47 7359 2132
Fax: +47 7359 2100

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:84
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