Word: decays
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Chemically, the decay that Cline so dramatically presents is due to the "acid paper" books were printed on beginning in the 1800s up until the 1950s. But exacerbating the acid paper problem--which causes the books literally to bake--is the lack of climate control in the stacks...
While Harvard struggles to find money to install a climate control system, much of the Widener collection continues to decay because of the way paper was milled beginning in the 1800s up until the 1950s...
...irony of this problem is that the oldest books actually decay slower and are consequently in better condition--assuming they have survived through the years--than the more modern books, Merrill-Oldam says...
Books are decaying rapidly today because "a tree had more to it than a cotton ball," says Merrill-Oldam. The problem is that wood contains lignin, the substance that causes newsprint even today to decay and yellow within a matter of weeks if left...
Rudenstine says that since climate control is only a temporary fix to the problem, the current challenge is to find a more efficient way either to treat the books themselves to prevent the decay or convert them to digital form...