The real thing Novel sensors for monitoring condition of books and archives Velson Horie Research Project Manager The British Library velson.horie@bl.uk
What is happening to our books? presevation of folding endurance DP X. Zou, T. Uesaka, N. Gurnagul, Prediction of paper permanence by accelerated aging. Part I: Kinetic analysis of the aging process, Cellulose, 1996, 3, 243-267. 2
A Few Statistics Formal beginning in 1753 as the library of The British Museum The British Library formed in 1973 from many collections New St Pancras building opened in 1998 150m collection items on 640km of shelves, 230 tonne of water 131m budget, 1900 staff 3
Major UK libraries and archives Cambridge University Library (CUL) The British Library (BL) National Library of Scotland (NLS) National Library of Wales (NLW) Oxford University Library (OULS) Trinity College Dublin Library (TCD) 7m printed items 150m items 14m items 6m printed items 11m items 4m printed items The National Archives (TNA) National Archives of Scotland (NAS) 4
BL - Additional Storage Building Boston Spa 7 million collection items 263 km, 12,000 tonne of stock Reduced oxygen (16%) Robotic book handling What are the long term effects? 5
BL - Newspaper Storage Building? 33 km of stock 5,300 tonne of stock 1.4 tonne/y VOC production 3,800 years till all evaporated 6
Condition assessment Preservation Assessment Survey Strength Colour ph Molecular weight Furnish SurveNIR VOCs 7
The real thing is important to people E-books sales have been slow to take off. CafeScribe is sending every e-textbook purchaser a scratch and sniff sticker with a musty old book smell. By placing these stickers on their computers, they can give their e-books the same musty book smell they know and love from used textbooks. http://www.cafescribe.com/ 8
212 VOCs identified from books (so far) 1-hexanol 1-octen-3-ol 1-decanol 1-dodecanol 1-heptanol 1-ethyl-2-methyl cyclohexane 1-methylethyl ester dodecanoic acid 1,3-butylene glycol 1,3-dimethyl cyclohexane 1,3,5-trimethyl benzene 1,4-dimethyl cyclohexane 2-heptanol 2-ethoxy ethanol 2-hexenol 2-ethyl hexanol 2-methyl-3-methylbutyl propanoate 2-ethyl hexanoic acid 2-ethyl-1-hexanol 2,3-dimethyl butyl alcohol 2,4-dimethyl hexane 2,4-dimethyl heptane 2,6-dimethyl heptanol 3-butyl-4-hydroxy anisole 3-methyl nonane 3-ethyl-2-methyl heptane 3-methyl octane 3-methyl pentanol 3-methyl heptane 3-octanol 3,7-dimethyl octanol 4-isopropyl cyclohexanol 5-methyl-furfural 5,9-dimethyl dec-8-en-3-ol acetaldehyde acetic acid acetoin acetophenone α-pinene anisole benzaldehyde benzoic acid benzyl alcohol benzyl acetate butanoic acid butyl alcohol butyl acetate butyl-cyclohexane camphene cumene cyclohexyl carbinol d-limonene decamethylcyclopentasiloxane decanal decane decanoic acid dibutyl phthalic acid diethyl acetal dimethoxy benzene dimethylphenyl alcohol dipropyl acetal docosane dodecanal dodecane dodecanoic acid, 1-methylethyl ester eicosane ethyl acrylate ethyl benzene ethyl cyclohexanol ethyl acetoacetate fatty acids and their esters furfural heneicosane heptadecane heptanal heptane heptanoic acid heptyl- cyclohexane hexadecane hexanoic acid hexyl acetate hexyl-cyclohexane higher hydrocarbons isoamyl alcohol isoborneol isobutyl acetate isobutyl cyclopentanol isobutylallyl carbinol isononyl alcohol methyl cyclohexane methyl heptenol methylisobutyl ketone naphthalene derivative nonadecane nonanal nonanoic acid o-,m-p-xylene (isomers) octadecane octanal octanoic acid p-t-butyl cyclohexanol p-ethyl phenol PAHs pentadecane pentanoic acid pentyl alcohol pentyl butyrate pentyl-cyclohexane phenanthrene derivative phenol propyl-cyclohexane siloxane derivative styrene t-butyl benzene tetradecane tetradecanoic acid, 1-methylethyl ester toluene tridecane trimethyl-benzene undecanal undecane undecanol vanillin total 212 Sources: Buchbauer 1995, Lattuati-Derieux 2004, Lattuati-Derieux 2006 9
Volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) 10
Using SPME fibres and elastomer strips to gather VOCs from books 11
Analysis of VOCs collected on diffusion tubes, Tenax tubes, SPME fibres, elastomer strips Off-line sample preparation and analysis Uses thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry More complex analysis than the organic acids and aldehydes Each sample run is 60 minutes 12
GC-MS identification and quantification 13
VOCs from individual books on-line assessment from headspace 14
Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometer (FAIMS) Owlstone www.owlstone.co.uk 15
Selected Ion Flow Tube Mass Spectrometry (SIFT-MS) SYFT Technologies (UK) Limited www.syft.com 16
Deconvoluting the data 1.E+04 1.E+03 1.E+02 Syft -MS measurements for Whitaker's Almanac, 1903 data divided by 1965 data 1.E+01 1.E+00 10 30 50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190 210 230 1.E-01 1.E-02 1.E-03 19 30 32 amu 17
Acknowledgements Andrew W. Mellon Foundation TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN Cambridge University Library Dr. J Havermanns Prof. G Banik 18