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Musty Book

Aitch

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Not totally sure this is the right sub-forum for this but...

I have just managed to get hold of a book I was after*. It's twenty years old and in damn near perfect condition except it's obviously been stored somewhere a bit damp and smells musty. (Some of the pages were stuck together at the edges, but were separated with no bother.)

Does anyone know of a simple way of getting rid of this smell? One that won't have any bad effects on the book?

Thanks.


* Wythenshawe - The Story of a Garden City by Derick Deakin, should you be interested. :cool:
 
pure SWAG, but I'll bet leaving it open in a very dry, warm environment would go a long ways towards removing the smell (probably mold). It may take a week or two to get all the excess moisture out. You may have to move to Arizona.

Once its completely dry there are probably dry deodorizers you could sprinkle in the book then remove after a few hours - something baking soda-ish, maybe?
 
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Good question. I have a very good copy of Eshbach with the same problem, and I have mold allergies. While reading your post, I decided I'm gonna try this: Sprinkling baking soda throughout the pages; sealing the book in a plastic Ziplock bag for several days; blowing it all out with dry air afterwards; spreading the pages open (?) and setting it outside (not in sunlight) on a day when RH is less than 25%.
 
Whenever I get an old, musty book, I wait for a warm, dry, breezy, sunny day. I open the book on an outside table and weigh down the front and back covers so that the breeze can move the pages about. Depending on the mustiness of the book, it may take more than one day (be sure to bring it inside at night).

Good luck!
 
Seal the book up in a plastic bag with odor control hamster or gerbil litter for a few days. Go through the book and brush out any loose mold or mildew with a soft brush, and repeat.
 
The advantage of baking soda is deacidifying the paper. In the GMS media center, we used Lysol spray after the summer they decided turning off the AC after summer school was done would be a good cost saver. It wasn't. But the spray did alleviate the odor.
 
I've placed books into ziplock bags with baking soda sprinkled liberally throughout the book's pages. Make sure the book is totally dry when you put it in the bag (don't do this on a humid day, even) or the soda can get caked onto the book in some spots. When you clean up the mess, the baking soda definitely is funky smelling, so it's removing something. Repeating the process several times does wonders for a gnarly smell. (Clean the soda out of the book with a hair dryer.)
 
Aitch said:
Not totally sure this is the right sub-forum for this but...

I have just managed to get hold of a book I was after*. It's twenty years old and in damn near perfect condition except it's obviously been stored somewhere a bit damp and smells musty. (Some of the pages were stuck together at the edges, but were separated with no bother.)

Does anyone know of a simple way of getting rid of this smell? One that won't have any bad effects on the book?

Thanks.


* Wythenshawe - The Story of a Garden City by Derick Deakin, should you be interested. :cool:
Click to expand...
Leave it on a window in the sun.
 
I once rebound a copy of Statutes and Patents, printed in 1677, that apparently had been through a library fire, subsequently soaked with water, and allowed to simply mildew. A friend found it on sale for less than $20, and it looked it. The leather binding had turned to punk, and the signatures had degraded along the spine to where just carefully leafing through the book would cause pages to drop out. And there were five different types of mold and mildew (identified by their different colors) that needed to be eradicated.

I dealt with the mold and mildew problems (and their associated odors) by storing the book in a large, closed container with a urinal cake inside (separate, NOT on the pages). The active chemical was paradichlorobenzine, which over the period of six months (yes, it took that long) permeated the carcass of the book and wiped out the little buggers. Twice a week, I'd open the box and flip over a few more pages to make sure everything got fumigated evenly.

I then went through, page by page with an assortment of brushes (starting soft and moving progressively stiffer -- quit snickering -- ) and cleaned each page, getting rid of all the spores, then pulled the book completely apart and rebinding the whole thing. It was some 480 pages long. It made for some impressive reading, too. I especially liked the rules and regulations governing printing presses. The truly astounding thing was that out of all the pages (hand-set lead type), I found only two mis-spelled words.

My suggestion is, get a plastic storage box larger than the book laid open, buy a cheap urinal cake, and close the two up for a while. YMMV.

Beanbag
 
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