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ZEISS in the Center for Book Preservation
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Books stacked pile-high, plans
and files as far as the eye can
see! Diffusing the air with the
delicate mixture of smells – old
leather, linen, bookbinding glue,
paper, printer’s ink and patina –
that usually greets experts when
they enter historic libraries and
archives. However, we are not
inside one of those venerable old
buildings; we are actually in an
extremely modern building north
of Leipzig, the “Center for Book
Preservation” (ZFB).
The ZFB originated from the
two central archives, the Deutsche
Bücherei and the Deutsche Bibliothek,
which were amalgamated in
Leipzig after the reunification of Germany.
Since 1998, it has offered, as
an independent institution, comprehensive
services for the expert preservation
of the valuable collections of
books held in libraries, archives and
museums. The center is able to draw
on what may well be unique experi-
ence in the area of paper restoration
and combines this knowledge with
research into and the development of
new methods for preserving large
quantities of books efficiently and rationally,
a service for which there is
considerable demand worldwide.
The work of the ZFB is known internationally
among experts in this
field. In general, however, the center
carries out its work and services
largely outside the public domain.
This changed suddenly in the fall of
2004 when the ZFB contributed, using
methods that it had developed,
to saving one of the most valuable
and historically irreplaceable collections
of books to have been preserved
in Germany. What happened?
On the night of September 2,
2004, a devastating fire destroyed
large parts of the historic Herzogin
Anna Amalia Library building in
Weimar. Residents from that part
of the town, employees and several
hundred spontaneous helpers formed
a human chain to save more than
half of the treasures – autographs
and books – from the burning
Unesco world-heritage site. Around
50,000 volumes from the library,
passed from hand to hand, were rescued
unscathed in this way. A further
30,000 escaped the inferno, damaged
to a greater or lesser extent.
First deep-frozen,
then dried
and saved
The latter, already singed by the fire
and soaked by the water used to
extinguish it, were given an initial
emergency home at the ZFB. Here
they were sorted and classified according
to the extent of the damage:
from Group One, virtually intact, to
Group Six, almost completely destroyed.
The treatment began with
temporary storage in large cold
chambers. Here, wrapped in muslin
or fleece, and at a temperature of
minus 20 degrees Celsius, each soaking
wet book was transformed within
Innovation 15, Carl Zeiss AG, 2005