CARE AND FEEDING OF USED BOOKS

Obviously the tomes in question have been around for a very long time, and they have eldritch powers looking after them, but even so, any potential collector is going to have to take very careful care of their finds, lest they crumble to dust like the hands of the dying fiend they were ripped from.

MOLD

Mold is any one of a large number of fungi that infests books that are kept in damp or humid environments. Many fungi contain colored substances, such as melanin, which stain paper, cloth, or leather, obsucring passages and ruining illustrations.

Worse still, their are several varieties of mold which are toxic, and others which are sensitizers, which can lead the unwary to develop sever allergict reactions to substances that would otherwise leave them unntouched.

Mold needs food, damp, dark, and ideally the right temperature to grow, good air circulation stops them growing as quickly, but it helps them spread to other books. By controlling all these factors, the risks of mold can be reduced. Geeting rid of mold; can be achieved with chemical treatments, UV/gamma-ray bombardment, reduced oxygen atmospheres, sucking it off with a very fine vacuum aspirator ( a nozzle on a compressor).

DAMP

Obviously tomes kept in wet cellars or dropped by fleeing villains are going to become damp, there are many ways to recover damp books: In most cases, the pages will be separated with another substances; paper-towels or polythene film to stop them sticking together.

ADVENTURE HOOKS:

One of the tomes has a large patch of mold on the inside of the binding (a favourite food for many molds. If the character distrubs it, just what is it, toxic, hallucinogenic, staining or harmless?
That vitally important tome/sheaf of hard-copy-records that the agents have been chasing has falled out of the dying hands of that head-shot cultist and into a pond, just how are they going to recover it, remove the tissue from the outside, and then get someone to clean/dry it without the contents becoming known. Is it time to court a new friendly?
Glove-cleaners, natch! Can the PC's discover who he is, and stop him from cleaning up the rest of that tome before he spreads something _really_ dangerous?

Air Drying	Space/labour intensive and often distorts books.
Dehumidification	Dehumidifiers are introduced to the environment, slow but easy.
Freezer Drying	Very slow drying on flash-frozen books, may cause pages to stick together
Vacuum Thermal Drying	Books are kept warm in a near-vacuum. Causes extreme distortion and paper sticks together.
Vacuum Freeze Drying	Books are frozen, placed in a vacuum and then heat introduced. Ice crystals sublimate directly to a vapour, without becoming liquid in between. Not used on leather or vellum.