Old books can be beautiful to look at. But handle with care — they just might be toxic.
The covers of Victorian-era books are already known to sometimes have pigments that contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and arsenic. But when researchers recently assessed a collection at their university’s main library, they found toxic metal concentrations on some tomes that exceeded safe levels.
“I think it’s very important for librarians to be aware of those risks,” says Leila Ais, an undergraduate student studying biochemistry at Lipscomb University in Nashville who will present the team’s findings August 18 at the American Chemical Society meeting in Denver.