Reddish stains along the upper border of books

[Pereira de Lisboa]

Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: see http://www.flickr.com/photos/***@N06/ The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

[foaddoc]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=foxing

Post by Pereira de Lisboa
Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

[RF]

Post by Pereira de Lisboa
Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

Sounds like foxing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxing

[Pereira de Lisboa]

OK, that's foxing.

Unfortunately, as you can read on Wikipedia, the causes of foxing are
not well understood (fungi, oxidation, umidity).

In fact I don't know where to place the books affected by foxing. Can
I safely place these books along with other books? Or must I isolate
them to avoid the issue spreading?

Thanks

[John R. Yamamoto-Wilson]

Can I safely place these books along with other books? Or must
I isolate them to avoid the issue spreading?

There are several processes that result in something that people
generally call foxing. Some of it is probably chemical (and will not
normally spread), but quite often it is fungal (and will spread given
the right conditions).

Fungal spores are notoriously difficult to kill. The smell of the spores
can be neutralised by kitty litter, and a spell in the freezer (well
wrapped in Ziploc bags) may help to render the spores inactive (as will
a spell in the sunlight), but actually killing them is very difficult.
They can remain dormant for years and years, just waiting for the right
conditions.

I have a large number of books from the 16th and 17th centuries. I avoid
anything that's really foxed to hell, but sometimes they are a bit gunky
when I first get them. Weather permitting, I put anything iffy in the
sunshine for a while (my balcony's a good place for letting the breeze
flip over the pages and give the whole book a good airing). If not, I'll
go for the freezer option. Then I'll put them in kitty litter for quite
a long time (weeks or months, though some people say that after a few
days it doesn't make any difference).

After all that I store them in humidity-controlled conditions, where the
spores will not be able to spread. I haven't had any problems with
fungus spreading once I've been through all that, but even then I'll try
to keep affected books away from unaffected ones.

If you have any leather bindings, check for something called red rot; it
spreads and can wreak havoc.

John

[RF]

On Apr 12, 9:31 am, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"

Post by John R. Yamamoto-Wilson

Can I safely place these books along with other books? Or must
I isolate them to avoid the issue spreading?

There are several processes that result in something that people
generally call foxing. Some of it is probably chemical (and will not
normally spread), but quite often it is fungal (and will spread given
the right conditions).

Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the cause
is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

[John R. Yamamoto-Wilson]

Post by RF
Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the
cause is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

True 'nuff. These days paper is pretty much universally acid-free, and
the reactions between ink and paper that used to happen (particularly on
pages facing illustrations) don't generally occur.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

[RF]

On Apr 12, 11:24 pm, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"

Post by John R. Yamamoto-Wilson

Post by RF
Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the
cause is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

True 'nuff. These days paper is pretty much universally acid-free, and
the reactions between ink and paper that used to happen (particularly on
pages facing illustrations) don't generally occur.

If they were my books I separate them from my non-foxed books.

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Pereira de Lisboa
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?

I think you should lock all the doors of your castle, hang it with
red drapes and hold a masked ball.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel [phone]
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax [phone]
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob [phone]

[RF]

On Apr 13, 4:59 am, Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Pereira de Lisboa
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?

I think you should lock all the doors of your castle, hang it with
red drapes and hold a masked ball.

Then get a hold of Roger Corman and Vincent Price!