4 ms·

Hungary's oldest library fighting to save 100k books from a beetle infestation

99 points by rntn 1y ago

Amezarak 1y ago
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.
- ajb 1y ago
  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.
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    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.
joecool1029 1y ago
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-library-abbey-beetle-infestation-pannonhalma-11069ba2713340ed28d27e3d7c8498cf 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." (The beetles are probably one of the most common minor pests you can find in a pantry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugstore_beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugstore_beetle )
- llbbdd 1y ago
  I'm confused, that's mostly the title of the linked original source?
GCA10 1y ago
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.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  They have electricity though right? Then they’re not too rural to have AC?
  - rzzzt 1y ago
    You can't slap a window unit on World Heritage sites: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/758 https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/758
  - GCA10 1y ago
    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-hvac-aces 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-archabbey-of-pannonhalma-hungary/ 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.
    - throw0101b 1y ago
mensetmanusman 1y ago
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.
- perihelions 1y ago
  Is that validated for books? Old paper is chemically and mechanically fragile; it's not obvious that gamma/ionizing radiation is harmless to it. Ultraviolet light is well known to be damaging, https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2.-the-environment/2.4-protection-from-light-damage https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2... ("Protection from Light Damage") https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/light.html 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.1957.1202611403 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 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))
  - mousethatroared 1y ago
    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.
bobvylan 1y ago
[dead]
dr_dshiv 1y ago
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.
- Telemakhos 1y ago
  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.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Recent versions of AI have greatly improved my ability to decode and translate ancient family letters. Finally!
  - dr_dshiv 1y ago
    Im working on this challenge with the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam… hit me up if you are interested. Curious which books you are starting with!
- __lm__ 1y ago
  Even recent works might be both unscanned and untranslated. I experienced this when the only way to access a 70 years old scientific paper written in Italian was by finding a copy in a library and scanning it. There are not many existing copies of the journal left, in a few decades it might have been lost forever.
johnisgood 1y ago
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.
zeruch 1y ago
Maybe use the bat method, made popular by the University of Coimbra: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/these-portuguese-libraries-are-infested-batsand-they-it-way-180969276/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/these-portuguese-libra...
whyenot 1y ago
Drugstore beetles are also a huge problem for natural history museums because they will eat all kinds of biological materials like dried plants. I am curator of a medium sized herbarium and we have been fighting beetles since 1945. PDB (paradichlorobenze; moth balls) used to be a very effective way to keep beetles out of collections, but most institutions no longer allow its use. Freezing specimens is what we do now, and it is very effective in the short term, but it has to be repeated at least every few years and it also causes some wear on the specimens. During COVID lockdowns when some specimens were not frozen regularly, the results were devastating. Pressed flowers reduced to dust, trays of pinned butterflies completely gone, only beetle grass left behind. Once you have these beetles they come back again and again. The only really good long term solution is to store everything in what is essentially a giant walk-in refrigerator. ...or if the specimens are old enough, they may have been treated with mercury or arsenic, which is quite effective but has other problems!
Onavo 1y ago
Where are the AI bros? Hurry up and throw money at this. Nature is the ultimate gatekeeper. They care not for copyright. The Supreme Court can't force the beetles to spit back the data. Once you train on it nobody else can.

99 points by rntn 1y ago

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.

ajb 1y ago
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.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  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.

joecool1029 1y ago

https://apnews.com/article/hungary-library-abbey-beetle-infestation-pannonhalma-11069ba2713340ed28d27e3d7c8498cf 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." (The beetles are probably one of the most common minor pests you can find in a pantry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugstore_beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugstore_beetle )

llbbdd 1y ago
I'm confused, that's mostly the title of the linked original source?

GCA10 1y ago

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.

Amezarak 1y ago
They have electricity though right? Then they’re not too rural to have AC?
- rzzzt 1y ago
  You can't slap a window unit on World Heritage sites: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/758 https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/758
- GCA10 1y ago
  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-hvac-aces 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-archabbey-of-pannonhalma-hungary/ 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.
  - throw0101b 1y ago

mensetmanusman 1y ago

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.

perihelions 1y ago
Is that validated for books? Old paper is chemically and mechanically fragile; it's not obvious that gamma/ionizing radiation is harmless to it. Ultraviolet light is well known to be damaging, https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2.-the-environment/2.4-protection-from-light-damage https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2... ("Protection from Light Damage") https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/light.html 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.1957.1202611403 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 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))
- mousethatroared 1y ago
  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.

bobvylan 1y ago

[dead]

dr_dshiv 1y ago

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.

Telemakhos 1y ago
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.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Recent versions of AI have greatly improved my ability to decode and translate ancient family letters. Finally!
- dr_dshiv 1y ago
  Im working on this challenge with the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam… hit me up if you are interested. Curious which books you are starting with!
__lm__ 1y ago
Even recent works might be both unscanned and untranslated. I experienced this when the only way to access a 70 years old scientific paper written in Italian was by finding a copy in a library and scanning it. There are not many existing copies of the journal left, in a few decades it might have been lost forever.

johnisgood 1y ago

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.

zeruch 1y ago

Maybe use the bat method, made popular by the University of Coimbra: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/these-portuguese-libraries-are-infested-batsand-they-it-way-180969276/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/these-portuguese-libra...

whyenot 1y ago

Drugstore beetles are also a huge problem for natural history museums because they will eat all kinds of biological materials like dried plants. I am curator of a medium sized herbarium and we have been fighting beetles since 1945. PDB (paradichlorobenze; moth balls) used to be a very effective way to keep beetles out of collections, but most institutions no longer allow its use. Freezing specimens is what we do now, and it is very effective in the short term, but it has to be repeated at least every few years and it also causes some wear on the specimens. During COVID lockdowns when some specimens were not frozen regularly, the results were devastating. Pressed flowers reduced to dust, trays of pinned butterflies completely gone, only beetle grass left behind. Once you have these beetles they come back again and again. The only really good long term solution is to store everything in what is essentially a giant walk-in refrigerator. ...or if the specimens are old enough, they may have been treated with mercury or arsenic, which is quite effective but has other problems!

Onavo 1y ago

Where are the AI bros? Hurry up and throw money at this. Nature is the ultimate gatekeeper. They care not for copyright. The Supreme Court can't force the beetles to spit back the data. Once you train on it nobody else can.