![]() Modern libraries often have better climate control than in previous generations, and this would lead to fewer infestations than in the past. The Northeast Document Conservation Center also has a wealth of information. I will shout out Mary Lou Florian, whose book Heritage Eaters is a great resource. There are many, many far more informed folks out there who have published complete and detailed information. I’m not going to go into methods of treatment for insect damage to collections, or for pest eradication. Just a note: as a profound lover of books as physical objects, I can only imagine that e-readers would have made poor Mister Blades apoplectic. Later in the chapter, he goes on to describe in an astonishing amount of detail, a bookworm “race” through a volume from the 1400s, tracking each worm trail through the thickness of the book until its creator perished. Here, at starting, is a serious chameleon-like difficulty, for the bookworm offers to us, if we are guided by their works, as many varieties of size and shape as there are beholders.” “Anathemas have been hurled against this pest in nearly every European language, old and new, and classical scholars of bye-gone centuries have thrown their spondees and dactyls at him…But as a portrait commonly precedes a biography, the curious reader may wish to be told what is this “Bestia audax”, who so greatly ruffles the tempers of our eclectics, is like. Here is a brief quote from his chapter on bookworms: Given my profession, the chapter on the evils of bookbinders does make me squirm. But then, like Blades, I am also a bit of a curmudgeon who thinks that the whole world is out to destroy books. His book is readily available online and I highly recommend reading it over. Blades was a printer and bibliophile who did research into early British printing, and thought a lot about old books. ![]() One of the classic treatments of the insect bookworm is in William Blades’ The Enemies of Books, first published in 1880. Incredibly impresssive book carving by artist Brian Dettmer. I base this solely on the fact that caterpillars are more likely to have something resembling hands which which to grasp a book. If I may have a pedantic moment here, I actually judge most of these “worms” to be caterpillars. O Corollary: the book must have a red cover. The bookworm really should be depicted holding a book, but occasionally may be depicted in a more realistic burrowing through the book fashion.O Corollary: the frames must be black or red O Corollary: the glasses must have round lenses First, I will need you to do a quick Google search for “bookworm” and let’s just look for a moment at these worms.Ĭlearly, from these images, there are a number of things which we must understand about bookworms. Just for fun, let’s spend a moment analyzing these images. Those of us on the preservation and conservation side of things, probably think more about the third. Children’s librarians probably think of something like the first two. Chances are, your answer will vary greatly depending on what part of bookworld you live in.
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