Do you have poisonous books in your library?! If your very old book has a green cover, you may wish to read this article on the BBC website at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2y9xq58no. It seems that in the Victorian era bookbinders used arsenic as well as mercury and chrome to create, which can cause low level arsenic poisoning. The National Library of Scotland has located a few such copies which have now been removed from its shelves.
More details in the article - and happy reading!
Chris
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Interesting - I have a line of bookbinders on my maternal side...I wonder if that contributed to some early deaths...will have to investigate.
ReplyDeleteIt might be worth putting some gloves on first!
DeleteAt NLS when we identify an arsenic binding we get our conservation team to encapsulate it in a Mylar binding to make it safer to access. We also ask readers to use nitrile gloves while handling the volume.
ReplyDeleteThat's fascinating! How often do you come across such books, i.e. is it quite rare? Thanks!
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