RE: Roaches in books

[Henry Grunder <hgrunder@xxxxxxxx>]

Angie -
Actually, I believe that you would be better off going the 
other way on the thermometer, i.e., FREEZING them. Tom 
Strang at CCI has done the work & published the paper we 
relied on in spec'ing & buying the "blast-freezing" chamber 
for decon of incoming materials for the New State Records 
Center here in Virginia. A key paper is his "A Review of 
Published Temperatures for the Control of Pest Insects in 
Museums," Collection Forum, 8(2), 1992, pp. 41-67.
You should be able to find the same treatment available on 
a small lot occasional basis locally - especially if you 
double-bag the stuff.
As I recall, neither roaches nor silverfish (the two most 
common domestic infesters) will develop "cold hardiness"; 
see
Inter alia, http://www.bham.ac.uk/biology/staff/bale.html 
for one of the leading researchers in this field, J. S. 
Bale. Another is Michael Rust, 
http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/faculty/rust1.html
My bottom-line recommendation was that we look for a 
protocol taking the core or center of the box, bundle, 
whatever, quickly to at least minus 40 degrees C. And 
holding it there for at least 5 days.
Please let me know if I can make my investigation further 
useful to you.
Henry Grunder
Library of Virginia

-----Original Message-----
From:	Angie Piercy [SMTP:afp048t@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:	Tuesday, November 03, 1998 17:33
To:	consdist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; padg@xxxxxxx
Subject:	Roaches in books

	A patron returned several books to us infested with baby 
roaches & 1 dead
adult.  We have the books all in a box together and I have 
been looking for
a way to be rid of the pests without damaging the books. 
 Besides sealing
them in and waiting for them to die (which could leave some 
stains on the
books), any ideas?  This has not affected the rest of the 
collection or the
library as a whole, but these are out-of-print art books 
that we would
rather not lose.  I read that heating items to 55 degrees C 
(131 F) would
quickly kill the pests, but what would this do to the 
books?  I have
searched the internet and ConDist archives, etc.  Any 
related experiences
or ideas would be helpful.  Thank you.

	Angie Piercy
	Head of Preservation Unit
	Southwest Missouri State University