Idea: For long-term storage & preservation of rare "treasures" (whether they be museums pieces, library books, national archive documents, or whoever), invest in oxygen-depleted facilities. At low-enough O2, nothing aerobic - be it bacteria, mold, bug, rodent, or whatever - can grow. Most can't even live. Gradual oxidation damage (paper turning yellow then brown, etc.) ceases. And disastrous fires can't happen.
thaumasiotes•2h ago
It will make retrieval challenging and dangerous.
giraffe_lady•1h ago
From the perspective of an archive, library, or museum preservation isn't really the goal in itself, just a strictly mandatory prerequisite. The pieces have to be made available to researchers (and depending on the institution the public) for the archive to be able to consider itself fulfilling its mission.
There is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
xerophiles can also be anaerobic. Certain Aspergillus can even show certain adaptations for anaerobic conditions. I wonder if we would just be pushing their evolution in that direction
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions
museyum•48m ago
And yet, the curators, when told to give the stolen museum pieces back, always retort, "But we take care of these items in ways the savages in the countries where we stole them from would be incapable of."
bell-cot•4d ago
thaumasiotes•2h ago
giraffe_lady•1h ago
There is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
Dave_Rosenthal•57m ago
culi•31m ago
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions