Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-14
HQSkin Letter.
BIZ
J. HASKzN
KEEPING BOOKS IN CONDITION.

heavy books are reinforced with a
cloth joint.
The library workers can replace a
| cheap, WORKOUT cover by a durable
one, but they are practically helpless be-
fore the inferior grades of paper on
which the cheaper modern books are
printed. Some of the popular novels
go to pieces like the "one-hoss shay
of Holmes poem. Not only do the COW
ers wear out, but the paper edges
tear, and the threads cut through the
paper where the book is sewed to-
gether. oBoks of this grade and popu-
larity have a short, intense career and
are discarded when they can no longer
be repaired.
Preserving Newspapers
How to preserve newspapers is a
more difficult problem. The New York
public library has hit on a plan which
it regards as satisfactory. Each page
! of news print in a bound volume is en-
closed in thin japanese tissue. To pre-
pare one volume of a newspaper, con-
tanning only a months issues, by this
method costs $40. But with an eye to
the future, when the newspapers of
today will be valuable old historic docu-
ments, the New York library is using
this tissue for current, newly-bound
papers.
The Library of Congress does not
go to this expense and labor in keeping
its great collection of newspapers.
| There is an extremely fine grade of
tissue, called crepeline. that is used on
important papers to keep them from
falling apart. and the Library of Con-
gress has used this material on one
or two volumes of its oldest newspa-
pers.
Great skill is required in applying this
crepeline to a sheet of paper. The ma
terial is a sort of chiffon, a mixture of
silk and mercerized cotton so filmy that
it Is almost transparent. The page
that is to be preserved with the tissue
is first treated with a fine flour and
water paste. The paste must be of ex-
actly the right grade, and the big cam
els hair brush must lay it over the
paper so that no brush marks are left,
and so that the coating is absolutely
smooth. Then the crepeline is laid
smoothly on top and the page is put
under heavy pressure between paraf-
fine sheets. The paste is taken up by
the paraffine, but enough is left to
fasten the threads of the tissue to the
paper.
IL iIt VI S'1l'Nf VI lHt|
Continental Congress and the only sur
viving draft of the Declaration of In
dependence are among the documents
that the Library of Congress has pre-
served with this transparent covering.
Caring for the governments collec-
ton of books and papers includes not
only the rebinding and repairing them
when necessary, but also keeping them
clean. The task of busting so large a
collection may be imagined from the
fact that it takes a man with a vacuum
cleaner a month 10 clean the books on
one deck of a stack. To make the
round of the stacks in the building at
this rate would take three years.
Books in this library do not collect
dust so rapidly as books on shelves in
a home. The stacks are as nearly
dust proof and damp proof as possi-
BILE. Windows in the stacks are never
opened. 4 ventilating system keeps
the air fresh.
Because ef-the dryness, the library
has no trouble with ants nor book
worms. Insects of this sort sometimes
get into imported books. especially
when they are brought over in the
hold of a ship. but such books are gen
orally disinfected before being placed
on file and in the dry and ~uncongenial
atmosphere of the stacks any surviv-
ors would soon die.
The cockroach is the only insect
that has ever annoyed the library Of
ficials by insistent vitality. At one
time cockroaches got into some of the
books and developed an enormous ap-
petite for the glaze in the buckram COW
ers. They also ate the gold off the ii
ties an decorations because of the al
bumen it contained. The library got
rid Of the expensive boarders. however,
and now it uses a kind of buckram
that is guaranteed To offer no attrac-
ton to insects.
The weather. insects. action of sun
light. and dust. are guarded against
in the governments big book collection.
Only the human element-the wear
and tear of handling the books-defies
regulation.