[Michlib-l] Deodorizing Smelly Books

[Driedger, Kevin (MDE)]

There is no guaranteed way to remove odors. One of the most common, and effective is to place the offending volume into a closed container with an odor absorbing compound – like kitty litter with zeolite. It’s best not to put the book in direct contact with the kitty litter so craft some kind of platform to separate them. It wouldn’t hurt for the book to be open and turn a few pages every couple of days.

In all likelihood, this will reduce, but not completely eliminate the odor. As an aside, at a school I attended one of the professors used to take out library books for a long time, and smoked a pipe in his home office. I could go down the library aisles and often identify which books he had used. Smoke is horribly invasive.

Good luck,
kevin

Kevin Driedger
Digitization and Conservation Librarian
Library of Michigan
P.O. Box 30007
702 W. Kalamazoo
Lansing, MI 48915
517-373-9440



From: michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org <michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org> On Behalf Of ehansen--- via Michlib-l
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2018 10:58 AM
To: michlib-l at mcls.org
Subject: [Michlib-l] Deodorizing Smelly Books

Hello All,

We are experimenting with ways to remove tobacco smells from books. Have any of you developed a good process for removing this cigarette smell?

Thanks,

Eric Hansen
Director
Vicksburg District Library
EHansen at VicksburgLibrary.org<mailto:EHansen at VicksburgLibrary.org>
269-649-1648
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