Ayutthaya - A musty odor reaches up from the basement of Maha Chulalongkorn University in Ayutthaya, an ancient capital north of Bangkok that was submerged for weeks during recent floods.

Manfred Anders from the Centre for Book Preservation (ZfB) in Leipzig, Germany, starts by throwing the windows open. 'We need air in here, otherwise it will be a breeding ground for mould,' he says.