I've visited that library. It's a high-ceiling architectural joy, but unless you're deeply, deeply into repetitive religious tracts of 600 years ago, most of the collection is more of a curiosity than a valuable resource to modern scholars.
To answer @Amerzarak's question, the abbey is in a rural setting without an immediate surrounding community of researchers or urban resources. So, yes, no air-conditioning. The floors are polished; the ticket-takers are friendly, and the guides have a handful of stories that they tell well. For aesthetics, it would be nice if they can preserve everything. But in terms of scholarly impact, this wouldn't be on my list of the world's 1,000 historic collections most worth preserving in their entirety.
> but unless you're deeply, deeply into repetitive religious tracts of 600 years ago, most of the collection is more of a curiosity than a valuable resource to modern scholars.
It's an abbey, so they are probably into religious tracts and it has cultural and sentimental value to them. E.g. if it has a Bible from the 13th century then it's worth preserving even if it's just the usual stuff.
> I've visited that library. It's a high-ceiling architectural joy, but unless you're deeply, deeply into repetitive religious tracts of 600 years ago, most of the collection is more of a curiosity than a valuable resource to modern scholars.
You know, there are modern scholars that study that stuff, both directly and as a resource for studying other areas.
Ah, if you've got the budget (and stature) of the U.S. Library of Congress, you can probably figure out how install all the necessary ductwork in a giant, multi-chambered old building that wasn't built with AC in mind. (Fun article is here about how they do it: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/blog/librarys-hva...)
But it's worth browsing pictures of the abbey to get a sense of how challenging this would be. https://www.comece.eu/christian-artworks-benedictine-archabb... Most books reside in giant, wall-flush bookcases with no natural ventilation. Establishing decent airflow -- without accidentally ruining structural walls or turning the bookcases into perforated messes -- seems very hard.
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-library-abbey-beetle-infe... < original source, so you don't need to read shit like: "Workers are racing to save 100,000 books from a rare beetle infestation inside Hungary's 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey, a UNESCO World Hertiage site."
I agree with the global warming bit. Living in Hungary all my life, the temperature seems to be absurdly high. We used to have four distinct seasons which are not so distinct anymore. There is essentially no snow during winter anymore. When I was younger, our winter were truly cold and it has been snowing for weeks. Now, there is no snow at all. I have not seen a white (snowy) Christmas in a long time, unfortunately.
Our summers are getting unbearable, and there are many apartments where you will not get a permit for ACs as they require some repairments because from what I heard, the cables or whatever can't handle the ACs. So... I am left here with a fan that is not enough anymore, and I cannot get a permit for an AC. It is going to be a tough summer.
Books could be sent through medical device gamma radiation conveyer belts to kill off the bugs. Eg the Institute of Isotopes in Budapest or the BGS facility in Germany for higher volume.
[late edit]: And if you search the literature, gamma irradiation is known to affect the texture of certain fruits—and if you ask why, one of the studied mechanisms is that fruits' cellulose polymers—which paper is also made of!—are easily broken by gamma rays:
> "Cellulose is degraded at gamma-radiation dosages equal to or below those required for softening plant tissues such as apples, carrots, and beets. Therefore it seems probable that the degradation of this cell wall constituent is a major factor in the radiation-induced softening of plant tissues."
The effect on thin, old paper should presumably be the worst, no?
[edit]: And this paper says the lethal gamma dose for one species (different one) of pestilential beetle is 1,000 gray, or 100 krad. That's a bit higher than the threshold doses for cellulose damage, from the other paper: 34–64 krad. Stressing that I have no clue know how those numbers translate to paper integrity.
You're right but, usually, life is more fragile than chemistry for no other reason that life is built on chemistry. There are animals with exceptional capacity to survive radiation, but they accomplish this by redundancy and quick repair.
So it comes down to picking the dose that doesn't kill your but does kills what would other wise kill you... radiation cancer therapy.
Well, the plan is to suffocate the books, which can hurt the beetles (since they're alive) but can't do anything to the books (since they aren't).
The only obvious advantage of irradiating them would be that it will kill eggs; if the eggs will still hatch in an oxygen-free environment, there's no advantage and plenty of downside.
Yes and no. On the fundamentals, environments never really become oxygen-free, and so it would be unexpected for beetles to have an adaptation to the scenario.
You could have an environment that was consistently oxygen-free, but it would make no sense for eggs laid in such an environment to refuse to hatch there.
I wish there was a central way to track the books that have never been scanned or translated— just to show the work we have to do. My guess is that the majority of Neo-Latin works are unscanned and untranslated.
Even among the scanned books there are tons of untranslated ones. I've collected a few that I'd like to do editions of with commentaries and translations—they're all on the same topic, which up until a few years ago nobody thought existed (in fact, someone's book on a related topic denied that these existed, because the author didn't know about them). I found them all initially through scans on Google Books.
Reading the article, it sounds like maybe they don’t have air conditioning? They talk about how the warming climate is increasing their breeding cycles, and they’ve mostly dealt with mild problems in the past. How hard would it be to retrofit here? It seems like a easy fix to a lot of their problems. I assume there’s some reason it’s not done.
I would guess simply cost. Air conditioning has a high energy cost, especially if your building isn't air tight, which many old buildings are not. In the UK companies can be tight fisted about air conditioning even though they could afford it; an abbey in Hungary may not have enough revenue to pay for it.
Having said that I wonder if they also have a damp issue, insects need some degree of moisture if they are eating stuff like paper.
They definitely have a damp issue, there’s a typo in my post - they’ve had a lot of mold problems. That’s the other reason it seems to me they need AC posthaste even if the not aesthetic.
To answer @Amerzarak's question, the abbey is in a rural setting without an immediate surrounding community of researchers or urban resources. So, yes, no air-conditioning. The floors are polished; the ticket-takers are friendly, and the guides have a handful of stories that they tell well. For aesthetics, it would be nice if they can preserve everything. But in terms of scholarly impact, this wouldn't be on my list of the world's 1,000 historic collections most worth preserving in their entirety.
It's an abbey, so they are probably into religious tracts and it has cultural and sentimental value to them. E.g. if it has a Bible from the 13th century then it's worth preserving even if it's just the usual stuff.
You know, there are modern scholars that study that stuff, both directly and as a resource for studying other areas.
But it's worth browsing pictures of the abbey to get a sense of how challenging this would be. https://www.comece.eu/christian-artworks-benedictine-archabb... Most books reside in giant, wall-flush bookcases with no natural ventilation. Establishing decent airflow -- without accidentally ruining structural walls or turning the bookcases into perforated messes -- seems very hard.
You do not need to run ducts, just piping for (say) mini-splits.
(The beetles are probably one of the most common minor pests you can find in a pantry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugstore_beetle )
Our summers are getting unbearable, and there are many apartments where you will not get a permit for ACs as they require some repairments because from what I heard, the cables or whatever can't handle the ACs. So... I am left here with a fan that is not enough anymore, and I cannot get a permit for an AC. It is going to be a tough summer.
Ultraviolet light is well known to be damaging,
https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2... ("Protection from Light Damage")
https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/light.html ("Limiting Light Damage")
[late edit]: And if you search the literature, gamma irradiation is known to affect the texture of certain fruits—and if you ask why, one of the studied mechanisms is that fruits' cellulose polymers—which paper is also made of!—are easily broken by gamma rays:
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1002/pol.1957.12026114... ("Effect of gamma-radiation on cellulose" (1957))
> "Cellulose is degraded at gamma-radiation dosages equal to or below those required for softening plant tissues such as apples, carrots, and beets. Therefore it seems probable that the degradation of this cell wall constituent is a major factor in the radiation-induced softening of plant tissues."
The effect on thin, old paper should presumably be the worst, no?
[edit]: And this paper says the lethal gamma dose for one species (different one) of pestilential beetle is 1,000 gray, or 100 krad. That's a bit higher than the threshold doses for cellulose damage, from the other paper: 34–64 krad. Stressing that I have no clue know how those numbers translate to paper integrity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43739-x ("The lethal and sterile doses of gamma radiation on the museums pest, varied carpet beetle, Anthrenus verbasci (Coleoptera: Dermestidae))
So it comes down to picking the dose that doesn't kill your but does kills what would other wise kill you... radiation cancer therapy.
The only obvious advantage of irradiating them would be that it will kill eggs; if the eggs will still hatch in an oxygen-free environment, there's no advantage and plenty of downside.
Anyway, I wouldn't suggest irradiating them either. Just the volume of required handling would ruin them.
You could have an environment that was consistently oxygen-free, but it would make no sense for eggs laid in such an environment to refuse to hatch there.
Curious which books you are starting with!
Having said that I wonder if they also have a damp issue, insects need some degree of moisture if they are eating stuff like paper.