Decomposing Books (was: Re: Books for DEC-heads)

From: Ward Donald Griffiths III <gram_at_cnct.com>
Date: Tue Sep 22 02:29:45 1998

Doug Spence wrote:

> (And on the cigarette smoke front, I'm happy to report that my Amiga
> Hardware Reference Manual and RKM: Exec manual no longer send out a
> suffocating stench of tobacco when I flip the pages! I guess it must have
> been humid this summer.)

Some of us _like_ the smell of cigarette smoke -- it's a clue that at
one point somebody actually read the book instead of using it as a
static display. All of my books smell of cigarette smoke, so do all
of my computers.

> I also have other historical documents that are in similar condition to
> the DEC books (most notably volumes 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 of Ernesto Che
> Guevara's "Escritos y discursos" which I still haven't read because I
> don't speak Spanish). As a result, I would be very interested in hearing
> if anyone has success in deacidifying books.

It isn't necessary to speak a language to read it. I don't speak
Spanish (unless I drop a brick on my foot -- then I speak the street
Mexican I learned growing up in LA), French, German or Latin --
but I read them with occasional glances at dictionaries.

> > Check out Doug Jones's excellent page about bookbinding and preserving
> > old paperbacks at http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/book/index.html
>
> This page itself deals with photocopying and binding mainly, but there are
> some excellent links from this page which deal with deacidification. I
> like the look of Paprican's Dry Deacidification Method... it looks like
> something I might be able to manage on my own if I can locate the
> materials. I'll have to look at some of the other processes as well.

You'll find some of the best resources at comic book shops.
-- 
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked me if I had any
firearms with me.  I said "Well, what do you need?"  --  Steven Wright
Received on Tue Sep 22 1998 - 02:29:45 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:31:35 BST