[DCRM-L] Poison books

[Johnson-DeBaufre, Eric]

Hi Julie!

I think that since chromium has been found to bind to bookcloth more readily--and therefore for the friability and offset potential to be significantly lower than in emerald green bookcloth—there hasn’t been as much of a sense of urgency to create a database of those books. But even if the risks from those chromium yellow books is lower, it is still worth educating people about the need to practice good habits when using those materials (i.e. washing hands immediately after).

My concern is that there are potentially significant numbers of arsenical emerald green books in open-stacks in many of our libraries, since early to late 19th century books are often not deemed rare enough to move them to closed-stack special collections. As people who are aware of these dangers, we should be working with our colleagues in charge of circulating collections to arrange audits of open-stacks collections for books that might contain arsenic.

And on that happy note I want to wish you all a good arsenic-free weekend! ☺

Eric

Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, PhD, MLIS
Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, Watkinson Library
Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106
860-297-4219

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> On Behalf Of Julie Moore via DCRM-L
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2024 3:06 PM
To: Garlock, Samantha <sgarlock at udel.edu>
Cc: Julie Moore <julie.renee.moore at gmail.com>; DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Poison books

Caution: This message originated from outside of the Trinity organization. Please exercise caution with any links and attachments.


Samantha,
Thank you so much for this amazing resource. We have already compared our collection to the arsenic list, and we found a few of those titles in our own collection.
Do you (or does anyone) know if there is a similar list of the Lead or Chromium books?
We're playing catch-up here.

All the best,
Julie Moore
Fresno State

On Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 2:20 PM Garlock, Samantha <sgarlock at udel.edu<mailto:sgarlock at udel.edu>> wrote:
Hi Julie,

My colleagues here at the University of Delaware, and at the Winterthur Museum, put together some helpful resources about poison book bindings: https://sites.udel.edu/poisonbookproject/

Best,

Samantha
Arsenic Bookbindings | Poison Book Project<https://sites.udel.edu/poisonbookproject/arsenic-bookbindings/>
Emerald green bookcloth on an 1852 imprint, Tallis's The Crystal Palace. Courtesy, Winterthur Library, Printed Book and Periodical Collection To...
sites.udel.edu<http://sites.udel.edu/>



Samantha Garlock

(Pronouns: she/her/hers)

Special Collections Cataloger

Cataloging & Metadata Department

University of Delaware
Morris Library


________________________________
From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>> on behalf of Julie Moore via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2024 3:31 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>>
Cc: Julie Moore <julie.renee.moore at gmail.com<mailto:julie.renee.moore at gmail.com>>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Poison books

Yikes! Are “poison books” a common occurrence in special collections?
How do you figure out which ones are poisonous candidates?

Julie Moore
Special Collections Catalog Librarian
Fresno State


Sent from my iPhone


On Aug 20, 2024, at 9:13 AM, Colleen Fedewa via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>> wrote:

Hello,
Our preservation staff are working on "poison books" from Special Collections and wanted to know what type of note they should use locally about handling them carefully (when they add their preservation notes). Anyone have recommendations?

Thanks for your assistance,
Colleen

Colleen O. Fedewa, MLS
Acquisitions & Metadata Librarian
Kelvin Smith Library
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH 44106
colleen.fedewa at case.edu<mailto:colleen.fedewa at case.edu>| (216)-368-3535<tel:(216)%20368-3535>
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--
Julie Renee Moore
Special Collections Catalog Librarian
Fresno State
julie.renee.moore at gmail.com<mailto:julie.renee.moore at gmail.com>
559-278-5813
“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
... James Matthew Barrie
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