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They used much higher-quality paper 300 years ago, so those books don't fall apart. Somewhere in the 20th century they used really crappy acidic paper for the
by midoridensha 4y ago
They used much higher-quality paper 300 years ago, so those books don't fall apart. Somewhere in the 20th century they used really crappy acidic paper for the mass-market paperbacks. If you're looking at sci-fi novels in hardcover form, this doesn't describe those; they generally used high-quality paper. I have a bunch of those from the 70s-80s that are fine too. Go look at the crappy romance novels from the 80s, and you'll see a very different story.
- dredmorbius 4y agoCheap pulp-based paper was a creation of the 19th century. The 1898 Report of the Librarian of Congress has an appendix titled "The Durability of Paper" addressing just this concern: <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&view=2up&seq=74&skin=2021 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&vi...>