Download PDF - Carl Zeiss

Fig. 1:
Damaged books from the
Herzogin Anna Amalia
Library in Weimar.
Fig. 2:
Mass-deacidification in
which the books are
soaked in an alkaline,
non-aqueous solution.
The treatment capacity
totals over 100 tons a year.
44
Acid corrosion,
the greatest concern
and threat
After this spectacular emergency operation,
the ZFB returned to its “normal
fields of activity” in the area of
book preservation, where rescues following
fire damage actually, or rather
thankfully, form the exception.
It is not bookworms, bark beetles,
mold or improper handling that present
the main threat to books as
historic cultural possessions. When
asked about the main issues in book
preservation, Dr. Manfred Anders,
CEO of the ZFB, named acid corrosion,
which already threatens a good
two thirds of all historically and culturally
important collections of
books, newspapers and documents
worldwide, as the greatest problem.
As a result of the growing demand
for paper, experiments began
using all kinds of ingredients as early
as the 17th and 18th centuries to
make the diminishing source materials
for paper manufacture go further,
1 2
and to improve the glue and quality
of finish. Today it is the acids in the
glue which, combined with environmental
influences, destroy the paper.
They degrade the fibrous substances
and cellulose which guarantee the
mechanical stability of the books. The
pages become fragile and brittle. This
aging process is autocatalytic, meaning
that it accelerates itself. Only
efficient mass-deacidification is able
to counteract this deterioration. The
ZFB has developed what it calls the
Papersave process for this purpose.
During this process, books are saturated
in an alkaline, non-aqueous solution
and deacidified. In this way
their life expectancy is extended by a
factor of 4 to 5. Although massdeacidification
(Papersave process) as
a conservation treatment is able to
delay damage, it is unable to reverse
it. In addition, therefore, the ZFB also
deals with all kinds of restoration
measures: correcting ink corrosion,
carrying out paper stabilization, fighting
against mold and performing all
forms of damage limitation – from
recording the problem to remedying
it – to the extent that these measures
are possible on the basis of the latest
research, findings and techniques.
This has achieved amazing results – a
scarcely decipherable hand-written
musical notation by Beethoven, the
virtually disintegrated first edition of
a Luther bible as well as the plans for
a Schinkel building drawn by the architect
himself have been protected
against further decay.
Naturally, all decisions regarding
how and with which methods the
various deterioration processes can
best be countered are preceded by
thorough analyses of the actual and
aging condition – using NIR spectroscopy,
for example. It almost goes
without saying, therefore, that Zeiss
is present in the Center for Book
Preservation, acting in some ways as
a partner, with instruments for expert
scientific examination, measurement
and determination of methodology.
But why go to all this effort when
everything can be recorded on microfilm
and digitized, a task that, inci-
Innovation 15, Carl Zeiss AG, 2005