Thousands of old books are in danger. Beetles are eating them. The books are in a 1,000-year-old library in Hungary. One of the books is a Bible from the 13th century. There are also hundreds of documents from before the invention of the printing press. Library staff are putting the books in large plastic bags. They removed the oxygen from the bags. After six weeks without oxygen, the beetles should be dead.
The insect eating the books is the drugstore beetle. It usually eats dried food like flour. The bugs like to eat the gelatin that is used to make glue in books. Librarians found something was wrong when they saw dust on the bookshelves. They then found holes in the books. These were from the beetles chewing through the paper. A librarian said she felt a lot of responsibility for saving the books. She said if a book is ruined, "a piece of culture has been lost".
Try the same news story at these levels:
Antique Books - Level 0, Antique Books - Level 2 or Antique Books - Level 3
Sources- https://www.yahoo.com/news/hungary-oldest-library-fighting-save-045728506.html
- https://www.foxnews.com/travel/destructive-bug-infestation-threatens-historic-1000-year-old-book-collection
- https://sarajevotimes.com/hungarys-oldest-library-is-saving-100-000-books-from-a-bug-infestation/
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