from Hacker News

Poison Book Project

by TeacherTortoise on 10/28/22, 9:43 AM with 4 comments

• by vogt on 10/31/22, 8:06 AM

  This piqued my curiosity and is something well outside of my normal hobbies/interests (conservation of old books or antiques, physical library spaces in general, etc), so I was curious who started it. Turns out the answer is Dr Melissa Tedone - Lab Head for Books & Library Materials Conservation at Winterthur Museum.

  She had been reading a book about arsenic-containing wallpapers in Victorian-era England, and connected mental dots while examining a book entered into the museum with a microscope. Pretty fascinating stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jH1niN3NpU the backstory starts around the ~1:40 mark

• by kylecazar on 10/31/22, 2:29 AM

  I once took a course called "poisonous books", a survey of literature throughout history considered "dangerous" due to the ideas presented. This is far more literal!!

• by userbinator on 10/31/22, 2:55 AM

  No doubt considered quite useful at the time for its naturally insecticidal properties...

  Librarians might be exposed more, and the information on the page has a hint of MSDS-like paranoia, but I wonder how toxic it is in practice to the individual who may have a few of these on a shelf somewhere.

• by davidw on 10/31/22, 4:06 AM

  "Klaatu Barada Nikto"