Why does it need to be acid-free?
The acids in the glue will eat the paper, and you'll be doing this again in a while.
Of course, if you don't care about the paper of your books . . .
I'm just, uh, just feeling kinda... truthsome right now. And, uh... life's just too damn short for ifs and maybes.
Mal ,'Heart Of Gold'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Connie Neil - Jan 21, 2009 1:43:48 pm PST #8317 of 28431
brillig
Polter-Cow - Jan 21, 2009 1:59:34 pm PST #8318 of 28431
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Acids eating paper? That's science-fiction mumbo-jumbo.
Connie Neil - Jan 21, 2009 2:04:43 pm PST #8319 of 28431
brillig
Acids eating paper? That's science-fiction mumbo-jumbo.
Sure, you little whipper-snapper. That lovely booky smell you get when you walk into a library? That's the smell of books dying an acidy death.
Polter-Cow - Jan 21, 2009 2:06:45 pm PST #8320 of 28431
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
That's horrible!
Connie Neil - Jan 21, 2009 2:07:07 pm PST #8321 of 28431
brillig
Whipper-snapper. Snapper of whips? Therefore, is Indiana Jones a whipper-snapper?
Connie Neil - Jan 21, 2009 2:07:36 pm PST #8322 of 28431
brillig
That's horrible!
Yup. I love it and hate it at the same time.
Fay - Jan 21, 2009 2:26:50 pm PST #8323 of 28431
"Fuck Western ideologically-motivated gender identification!" Sulu gasped, and came.
That's the smell of books dying an acidy death.
And so they are! Alas that they are so;
To die, even as they to perfection grow.
joins Sunil in the traumatised corner, and tries to ignore the tiny rustling screams of dying books.
Connie Neil - Jan 21, 2009 2:30:36 pm PST #8324 of 28431
brillig
Acid in the paper is what causes old books to have such fragile pages. When books were more treasures and less mass-produced, they were printed on higher quality rag paper. It's the acids from wood pulp that is the problem. Really early books were printed on vellum (sheepskin) and parchment (which is rag, I think), which lasts forever and is why we still have things like the Gutenberg Bible and near-original Chaucers.
Edit
the tiny rustling screams of dying books
What a macabre image. When I walk into a library or bookstore and smell that wonderful, sad odor, I want to grab all the books and promise them I'll save them.
I didn't smell that at the Huntington Library. Of course, those folks know how to preserve a book.
Typo Boy - Jan 21, 2009 3:44:36 pm PST #8325 of 28431
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
100% cotton or hemp can easily be made acid free. (Acid free hemp paper should last millenia )
Ginger - Jan 21, 2009 7:02:26 pm PST #8326 of 28431
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Newsprint has a high acid content, although it's lower now than it was. That's why old newspaper clippings crumble to pieces. Pulp magazines and paperbacks are particularly prone to falling apart in your hands. There are some easily available pH neutralizing products now, if you have older paper you want to keep. Acid also eats away at artwork on paper, which is why you want acid-free mats and backing. Regular cardboard has enough of an acid content to ruin paper things stored in it, so my stored art is in acid-free boxes or plastic.
If you wish to be further traumatized, the Kodak Company claims that it never intended color photography to be permanent. All your grandparents' pictures are fading into faint brownish blobs.