Help! Bookworms. The other sort...

[Marc Joan]

Bought an oldish book by post about a month ago; but due to work pressure I only got around to looking at it today. Imagine my delight when I discovered it had bookworm damage. I don't know whether the insects are still active or have flown the nest, but as a precaution I've carefully wrapped up the book and put it in the freezer, which hopefully will kill any that are left. Just wondering if anybody had any other tips / tricks for annihilating the little swine? I've read that 3 weeks of freezing should slay them -- anyone know any different?

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Yep. Freezing's the way to go.

 

[Patricia D]

Wow - I didn't know there were such things. I'd treasure that book with proof of their existence.

 

[Marc Joan]

Wow - I didn't know there were such things. I'd treasure that book with proof of their existence.

I found two neat little tunnels all the way through from the title page to the end. And a thick layer of white dust -- the 'frass' -- when I opened the very last page. I suppose nobody had opened the book for a while. Oh well, it's still legible.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

My son is reading Les Miserables right now--a copy of the book that I read when I was his age, and it was second-hand then. He was excited to find it had been intricately tunnelled by a bookworm. Nice little gallery half way through the book, with radiating tunnels. In the margin, thankfully, so it's still readable. As an entomologist, I'm afraid I'm as excited about the book pests as I am about the books.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Although damage by insects is fascinating to see, adding to the antiquity of a volume, in all seriousness, we need to be cautious about inhaling the dusty aroma that's part of the appeal of used books.

When I worked as a librarian, I had a colleague who suffered from itchy skin infections. He specialised in the local history collection for Westminster, commonly handling documents, maps and leather bound tomes dating back hundreds of years. Then, he collapsed at home unable to breathe, and was taken to hospital where they identified a nasty lung infection, which was thought to have been caused by the dust from old books. Thankfully, he recovered and took to wearing protective gloves and a face mask when handling old book stock.

Pay Attention to Books Deadly Dust

Libraries have taken to cleaning their books with automatic machines.

If you really need your fix of old book smell, especially if your Kindle doesn't do it for you, then there are suppliers of the necessary aroma:

The smell of books in a spray, lotion or candle