Protecting rare books from humidity

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Protecting rare books from humidity

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1na-Mhoram
Apr. 28, 2018, 6:54 pm

This is a repost from Book Talk.

I have a small collection of leather books from Easton Press as well as some expensive limited edition and lettered edition books (not leather). I am currently living in an apartment and using an open bookshelf near a window. I live in a humid state in the southern US.

I've recently purchased some new leather books and noticed that the pages started becoming wavy over the course of the first day after arrival. They were in perfect condition when they arrived. Not all of my books do this. I have several other leather books that haven't had any issue with waviness. None of my non-leather books have had this issue at all, either.

Is there something I can do to prevent this? I assume that this is caused by the humid environment. I keep my apartment at around 65-70 degrees Fahrenheit during warm weather. I have thought about purchasing a barrister bookcase and either using a dehumidifier in my studio apartment where the books are kept, using silica gel packs on the shelf, or a combination of the two.

In the meantime, I have some more books coming in. Currently, buying a decent barrister bookcase is out of budget (around $1500-2500 according to some Google searches). These books are Easton Press leather books. Most of them are sealed, but some aren't. Should I put them in a storage container (e.g. a fiberboard box from Container Store) and toss in a few silica gel packs as a dessicant in order to preserve them until I can find a better shelf to put them on?

Here are some photos of what I am talking about. The brown book has no warping, but the two teal/green books do.

https://imgur.com/a/XUJjScL

This is pretty aggravating. Thank you.

2na-Mhoram
Bearbeitet: Apr. 28, 2018, 7:02 pm

For what it's worth, the two teal books were shipped from a seller in Utah to Arkansas. A friend of mine thought it's due to the transition from a drier climate to a wetter climate and that the pages are trying to re-equilibrate to the change in humidity. Her suggestion was to leave the books out -- flat -- on a clean tabletop for a couple of weeks and flip through the pages daily to get the books to adapt to the new environment. What are your thoughts? Thanks.

The books were perfect after taking them out of the box. The books were wrapped in bubble wrap and had a vapor barrier around them. Over the course of a few hours, they started to warp. Most of my leather books haven't had this issue; their pages are perfectly straight after weeks/months on the same shelf in the same location of my apartment... One book had some slight page waving after taking it out of publisher shrink wrap and letting it sit on my shelf for a few hours.

All of the books I have purchased from either the Ohio River Valley area or other Southern states. They don't have this problem...

3eastonlionel
Okt. 12, 2018, 8:25 pm

I agree with your friend. I have seen this too with Easton Press and other books. The book paper is acclimating to your local climate. If the humidity environment in which it was stored and wrapped before shipping is very different from your home, the pages will either absorb or give off humidity to adjust. The pages should straighten out after several days. At least that has been my experience. I don't daily open the books and fan them out. I just let them be. They will acclimate. The same happens to wood furniture that is moved to/from very different humidity environments. Musical instruments, etc., etc.