Library battles beetles to save 100,000 old books
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READING:
Tens of thousands of old books are in danger. They are being eaten by beetles. The books are hundreds of years old. They are in a library in a medieval abbey in Hungary. The abbey was founded in the year 996. One of the books is a Bible from the 13th century. There are also hundreds of documents from before the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Library staff are putting the books in wooden boxes. The boxes are being sealed in large plastic bags. The oxygen has been removed from the bags. After six weeks without oxygen, the beetles should be dead.
The insect eating the books is the drugstore beetle. It usually eats dried food, like wheat, flour and spices. The bugs like to eat the gelatin and glue that are used to make books. Librarians understood something was wrong when they found lots of dust on the bookshelves. They also found holes in the books. These were from the beetles chewing through the paper. A librarian said: "We've never encountered such a degree of infection before." She felt a lot of responsibility for saving the books. She said if a book is ruined, "a piece of culture has been lost".
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