Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501070084
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
People must go through the depressing realization in middle age that their bodies really do start breaking down. Books of a certain age not only are in worse shape than newer volumes, they're in worse shape than older ones, too.
This, the Christian Science Monitor reports, is because chemical treatments used in their printing have discolored pages and, combined with air pollutants, have made them brittle. They are crumbling, while books printed before the 1850s, when cotton-rag and linen-rag paper was used, have held up over time.
Publishers turned to paper produced from wood pulp, and the acid in this paper has - after 100 or 150 years - caused deterioration. Newer volumes aren't expected to break down in the same way, because publishers now print on acid-free paper.
That leaves 100 million books with pages being eaten away that are in danger of being lost in their original form. The Modern Language Association estimates that about 10 million of these are unique and irreplaceable volumes.
Can nothing be done? Yes, but it is expensive. Books can be treated with a chemical to take the acid out - for $10 to $15 per book. Or they can be copied onto microfilm. This has problems of its own. Not only is a microfilmed version far less appealing to readers; information can be lost from the original. One scholar looking at the original notebooks of French author Marcel Proust discovered material from it that was thought to be lost. It was on a facing page, seldom used by Proust, and was overlooked when it was microfilmed.
Libraries - those that remain open - already are facing dwindling budgets in these streamlined, no-frills times. Libraries, however, are not frills. They deserve public support, mainly to provide access to information for every citizen, but also to preserve the books that are part of our culture.
by CNB