Tips For Saving Water Damaged Books

By Dianna Dilworth 

Hurricane Sandy pounded bookstores and libraries across the North East destroying many books in her path. To help bookstore owners, librarians and anyone else who is hoping to save a book, Melville House has put together a list of helpful tips on how to repair water damaged books.

Here is one helpful tip: “Books can be placed in a plastic zip lock bag or stacked in a crate spine down and frozen to keep the material stabilized if you need more time to carefully dry the books. Rapid freezing to -15 to -20 degrees is necessary to minimize damage from ice crystals, so be aware that home freezers can’t always achieve this. A food storage freezer is ideal for this method.”

In the multimedia department, eReadernews.com has advice on saving an eReader, and Doityourself.com has tips on how to dry out a DVD.