Friday, October 2, 2015

Boston Public Library rare book collection has a mold outbreak




After librarians at the Boston Public Library noticed mold spores on a medieval manuscript, they have decided to shut down access to their rare book collection for five to ten weeks as they assess the situation.

The collection is located in the McKim Building (seen above), built in 1895, which is now undergoing major construction. The rare manuscripts and holdings affected are usually climate controlled through air conditioning and carefully placed dehumidifiers--but being the summertime, humidity levels have been high. If humidity isn't giving you a bad hair day, it's doing its damndest to ruin our historic books.

As Fine Books Magazine reports through the Boston Globe, Laura Irmscher, chief of collections strategy at the Boston Public Library, claims it was a perfect storm of construction and seasonal humidity merging together to cause the chaos.

As a result, over 500,000 holdings in the rare collection will need to be hand-examined for mold damage.

And you thought you had a bad day at work.




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