Offgassing from oak shelving

Frederick Bearman <f.bearman [at] ucl__ac__uk> writes

>I'd be grateful for any information on offgassing of new oak
>shelving for books. Any references would be most welcomed.

I am dealing with a cotton textile that has turned yellow due to a
wooden frame; so I would suggest not to use any wooden shelves for
storing cellulosic material without any barrier layer. As oak is
known for its content of tannins, this wood probably is not a good
choice at all.

Although, it might depend a bit on what kind of books you are
planning to place on your shelves or whether you wrap your books or
pack them in archive boxes etc. before placing them on the shelves.
Wood shelves will raise the acetic/formic acid content in the air.

Have a look at Pamela B. Hatchfield's book Pollutants in the museum
environment? (Archetype publications, 2005, ISBN 1-87313-296-4). I
don't exactly know how much she writes about oak, but there is a
chapter concerning wood and wood products in general. She also lists
very useful literature.

Thomson might write about that topic as well: Garry Thomson, "The
museum environment" (Butterworth-Heinemann, ISBN 0-7506-2041-2).

A lot about harmful effects of oak and wood in general has--as far
as I know--been written in the field of metal conservation or
literature about air pollution in museums.

I haven't been very successful yet in finding literature concerning
harmful effects on cellulosic materials, as mostly, its only
marginally mentioned. So if you come across some interesting
articles concerning the wood induced damage of cellulosic materials,
I'd be glad to hear about it.

Anna Endress
Student at Cologne Institute for Conservation Sciences
Conservation of Book and Paper
Dasselstr.75-77
50674 Koeln
Germany
+49 221 3976893


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:22
                Distributed: Monday, September 10, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-22-002
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