I don’t know whether these will have any truth in them or whether they will just amuse / appal. These two ‘tips’ were forwarded to me by my boss from a US Earth Science Libraries mailing list. We’d not favour the first here for fear of tainting our books with ‘odeur de mulligatawny’ rather than mould!
1 I have heard of people using a microwave to kill mold. You have to be careful that the book does not have any gold leaf lettering or on the pages or that will cause arcing. I have used it twice and it seemed to work pretty well.. I think I had a 2" thick hardcover book and microwaved it on high for about 30 seconds at first and then 1 minute. It worked pretty well. I gently wiped off the mold dust that I could see on the pages afterwards. Keep in mind that the book was not rare or valuable!! I did not notice any damage to the glue or binding.
2 I learned another neat trick from our Preservation Librarian. To get rid of the moldy/musty smell, you can use cat litter.
Fix a pan of cat litter (fresh -- of course and keep away from your Library Cat -- should you have one). Cat litter with baking soda may work better. Put your book suspended above the cat litter on some type of wire cage, dish rack or other contrivance that will allow you to spread the pages. Leave for a while, and change the pages that are spread out every so often. Do NOT put the book in the cat litter
The cat litter should soak up some/much/all of the smell.
Results, of course, may vary but I have tried it with some garage sale items. It does work.
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Wendy Cawthorne, Assistant Librarian,
Geological Society Library,
Burlington House, Piccadilly, LONDON W1J 0BG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7432 0999; Direct: +44 (0)20 7432 0997 +Fax: +44 (0)20 7439 3470
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Visit the ultimate geological site at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk