#thanks for all the information ❤️

dr-jekyl:

run-on-lightning:

homunculus-argument:

If you go on the internet and google how to dry out a drenched book, you’ll find a forum where someone else asked the same question and was told to go fuck themselves and just google it.

If you go on the internet and confidently announce that the best way to dry out a drenched book is to dip it in alcohol and light it on fire, and nobody else has ever figured out a better way to dry out a book without damaging it. Argue about it with absolute confidence for long enough, and somebody willwrite you out a peer-reviewed 30 page tutorial with an essay section with 15 cited sources that offers you threedifferent, separate, far superior methods on how to dry out a drenched book.

While the human desire to help one-another may wane or falter, you can always count on the righteous anger of someone witnessing a stranger being Wrong On The Internet.

but um then what is the method to dry out a drenched book?

I don’t have time for the full 30 page tutorial with citations, but, having done library disaster recovery in both theory and practice, it depends on:

1. how drenched the book is
2. what it’s been drenched in and how dirty that was
3. what kinds of material the book is made of
4. how many other books have been drenched

But really the two primary methods of salvaging wet books are air drying and vacuum freeze drying. Since few people have quick access to a vacuum freezer, here’s a guide to saving your books and other precious things after they’ve been soaked from the State Library of Queensland. And because I’m nice, here’s a solid video showing air-drying techniques from Preservation Australia:

Andhere’s another showing how to safely remove books from dirty water and clean them.

Important things to note:

• You have less than 48 hours to act before you’ll get mould. You can buy time for most books and paper documents by wrapping them individually in baking or freezer paper, or putting them into individual plastic bags and stuffing them in a freezer to freeze through. You’ll be able to safely thaw them and dry them later. This is not safe for photos and may not be safe for other things like mixed media.
• Don’t use hair dryers or other heat sources or you’ll get mould. It’ll also make distorions worse.
• Youreally don’t want mould. Believe me. It will spread through every single book you own and it’s toxic as fuck.