Hi Katrina,
NEDCC has an excellent page for mold treatment - both identifying active versus inactive mold, PPE (extremely important!) for mold remediation, and methods: NEDCC Salvage of Moldy Books and Paper
We use a dedicated HEPA vacuum in a fume hood when dealing with mold, along with Tyvek sleeves, disposable aprons, gloves, and N95 masks. PPE is bagged and the bag tied shut before disposing. All vacuuming tools including the fume hood are cleaned with isopropanol after and allowed to air dry.
Janice is also correct that mold spores are everywhere and just waiting for optimal conditions to grow. Improving air circulation and reducing RH will help prevent mold growth in the future.
I hope that helps, good luck!
Best,
Liz
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Elizabeth Peirce
C2C Care Monitor 2/3-2/16/2025
Conservator (Objects)
Library of Congress
Washington DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-14-2025 13:35
From: Katrina Eeles
Subject: Moldy Books!
Hi All,
We have a few old books which have what appears to be inactive mold on them. Over the summer we had some challenges managing the humidity in our storage space and a few more books started showing signs of mold. To be on the safe side and as a temporary fix we have bagged all the 'sick' books to keep the mold from spreading (either the old inactive becoming active or the new active contaminating other books).
So my question is:
What do we do as a long term solution for cleaning/treating the inactive mold and how do we go about treating the active mold? I know the books cant and shouldn't stay bagged forever!
Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated as we have limited resources (no conservators in the area)!
Thank you from Selkirk, Canada!
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Katrina Eeles
Selkirk
Canada
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