![]() ![]() Light and UV meters can be used to check the performance of filters and to determine how much visible light and UV radiation are reaching a given storage or exhibition space. However, all such UV filters have limited life spans and must be checked regularly for damage and functionality. Exhibition cases can also be made with UV-filtering glazing. UV filters are also available for artificial light sources, including plastic sleeves that slip over fluorescent tubes and lens filters for tungsten-halogen bulbs. Both sunlight and artificial light from fluorescent tubes or tungsten-halogen bulbs contain UV, although sunlight contains far more. In addition, consider installing UV filters on all local light sources. If this is not possible, use curtains or blinds to block the light. To protect books from light and UV damage, store and exhibit them away from windows and skylights. These waves not only give people sunburns, they also damage a wide variety of organic materials-and glass alone does little or nothing to block UV radiation. Too much light exposure eventually weakens and decays paper, cloth, and leather, particularly if high-energy ultraviolet (UV) waves are not filtered out. It can also fade book spines, change the color of paints or inks, and bleach or darken paper. Light can permanently fade carpets and drapes. Although damaged books can often be rescued through conservation treatment, it is far more economical and effective to prevent their deterioration by following some basic preservation guidelines. Each of these materials responds differently to environmental conditions, and the most sensitive components ideally determine how the books are handled, stored, housed, and exhibited. Light, heat, humidity, insects, dust, and careless handling all take their toll on book collections, which can contain a wide variety of organic and inorganic components: wooden boards, paper or parchment leaves, cloth or leather coverings, metal bosses, and many different inks and pigments. The yellowed paper imparted a faint acidic tingle and fell easily into mosaic pieces, barely perceptible between the fingers-moth wings at the brink of eternity and dust. Their pages were stenciled with the shapes of long disintegrated fern collections and bored by termites into what looked like maps of plumbing. The books had titles long faded into the buckled covers some of them had not been touched in fifty years and they broke apart in one’s hands, shedding glue like chitinous bits of insect. The Gymkhana library was a dim morguelike room suffused with the musk, almost too sweet and potent to bear, of aging books. In The Inheritance of Loss, novelist Kiran Desai (2006) provides a vivid reminder of what can happen to books in an uncontrolled environment: With proper care, books can last for centuries-but they are also fragile.
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