Books with bedbugs

A few days ago (Wednesday, June 11, 2014), circulation staff at our
main university library discovered that a sizable but indeterminate
number of recently-returned items were infested with bedbugs.  They
had already been transferred to multiple shelves and containers, so
all the materials which appeared to be infested, as well as their
neighbors, are currently isolated in bins in a number of layers of
plastic.  In the meantime, we don't yet know if there are other
infested materials that weren't detected, or if they've escaped
beyond the bins we've already isolated.

Has anyone dealt with bedbugs in books, on books, in a collection,
or in a library?  Do you have recommendations?  Is it practical (or
wise) to kill them, then clean the items and send them back to the
stacks?  I believe all the materials affected are general
collections, so they should be able to take freezing or a certain
level of heat safely, but it's possible we'll discover more fragile
materials as well.

Meg Garnett
Preservation Department
University of Maryland Libraries


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 28:2
                   Distributed: Monday, June 16, 2014
                        Message Id: cdl-28-2-017
                                  ***