Übmiy of Congress conducts resale mission
WASHINGTON - America’s
books are crumbling away at an
alarming rate, and nobody is more
aware of it than Dr. Peter G.
Sparks.
In a box in his office at the
Library of Congress, Sparks keeps
a copy of an 1896 book with the
intriguing title of “Sartor
Resartus: The Life and Opinions of
Herr Teufelsdrockh,” by Thomas
Carlyle.
Pick up the book and turn one of
its dry, yellowed pages. Bits of
paper flutter to the carpet. In a few
years the book will be unreadable.
Fortunately, it won’t be lost,
because it’s been transferred to
microfilm. But millions of other
books, from every library in the
country, won’t be so fortunate.
They’re on an irretrievable path
toward becoming confetti.
Sparks, a chemist who has been
the library’s director of preser
vation for the past five years, uses
the Carlyle volume to dramatize
the nature of the problem.
Rescue Operation
Under his direction, the library
has been conducting a rescue
operation that should, in a few
years, give a new lease on life to
millions of books.
The Library of Congress, whose
vast collections contain more than
80 million items, houses the
world’s largest assemblage of
stored knowledge. Its general and
law collections alone encompass
some 13 million volumes.
Library officials estimate that
one-fourth of the books in those
collections about 3.25 million
volumes fall in the category of
“brittle books.” And the library is
losing more books at a rate
estimated at 77,000 volumes a
year. The process is “one of the
most unrecognized and serious
perils that afflicts civilization.”
says librarian of Congress Daniel
J. Boorstin.
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The villain is acid. Since the mid
1800’s, when mass production of
books accompanied a spurt in
literacy, paper has been made
from wood pulp. Its “sizing,” the
material used to fill its pores and
make it suitable for printing, is
acidic. Over time, acid destroys
the paper.
Today’s average book has a life
expectancy of 20 to 50 years before
it turns brittle, Sparks says. Books
printed on better-grade paper may
make it to 100 or more.
Newspapers and paperbacks are
the first to go.
Really old books aren’t as much
of a problem. They were printed on
paper made from rags, and they
weren’t acidic.
One way to ensure greater
longevity for modem books is to
print them on nonacidic paper.
Another way is to find a method for
removing the acid from books
printed on regular paper.
Neutralizing. Acid
For the past few years, the
Library of Congress has been
working toward an effective mass
deacidification technique, ex
perimenting with its own patented
process, which uses diethyl zinc
gas DEZ for short to
neutralize the acid.
Work has progressed enough so
that groundbreaking is planned for
an $11.5 million book
deacidification facility at Fort
Detrick, an Army post near
Frederick, Md., about 40 miles
north of Washington.
When completed, the 40,000-
square-foot facility is expected to
be able to deacidify 500,000 to 1
million of the library’s volumes a
year, with an eventual capacity of
2 million, Sparks says.
But there’s a potential delay.
The deacidification process must
take place in airtight chambers,
because DEZ bursts into flame
when it comes in contact with
either air or water. In
congressional testimony in
February, Sparks disclosed that
there had been two accidental fires
at the deacidification test facility
at Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.
The researchers and builders, he
testified, are trying to determine if
design changes are needed at Fort
Detrick. If answers aren’t found,
Sparks says, “Our plan is to take
the most prudent approach and
delay awarding the contract until
such time as these problems can be
solved.”
Sparks plays down the
significance of the fires and
predicts that the project will
progress nearly on schedule, with
groundbreaking this spring or
summer, opening in 1987, and fully
operational status in 1989.
“We’re putting an incredible
amount of effort into safety, and
we’re absolutely convinced that it
will be entirely safe,” he says.
There’s no question about the
preservative qualities of the
process, which takes five days. A
DEZ-treated book may last 400
years or more.
To Share Technology
Once the kinks are out of the
Library of Congress facility, the
library will be willing to share its
patent with other libraries at no
charge, Sparks says, saving
millions more books worldwide.
Librarians have known about
brittle books for years, and the
DEZ process isn’t the only answer.
An Illinois company, for example,
has developed a process called Wei
T’o that uses a liquid
deacidification solution.
Kenneth F. Foster of the Public
Archives of Canada, one of the
biggest users of Wei T’o, says his
agency is now deacidifying about
50,000 books a year, and “generally
(Turn to Page B 11)
to me deteriorating books
Whoos . A hefty puff by Peter Waters, Library of Congress
conservation officer, is all it takes to make confetti out of the
pages of a book made brittle by slow-working acid in the
paper. Using a patented deacidification process, the library is
leading U.S. efforts to add years to the life on endangered
books.