Leipzig Book Preservation Company Aims to Win a Race Against Time

ZFB specialists preserve historic works.

The alarm bells are ringing for curators, librarians, archivists, rare book collectors and book lovers everywhere.

Millions upon millions of books, maps and many other historic documents such as those at libraries and collections across the globe are rapidly self-destructing. An estimated 85% of the 17 million books and nearly 95 million maps stored in the Library of Congress in Washington DC are affected by this phenomenon.

The primary culprit is acid in the paper itself. Unlike the cloth-based paper made in earlier times, all industrial pulp paper production, which began after about 1850, involves the use of wood cellulose as the raw material. The mass papermaking process uses aluminum sulfate and groundwood fibers, both of which readily form acids that, after about 100 years, begin to destroy the chain molecules of the cellulose that are necessary for paper stability. The paper becomes brittle and discolored.

Other causes for deterioration include ink corrosion, microbes, insect infestation (such as “book worms”), light, dryness, water, fire, and improper handling or mistreatment by people.

Dr. Wolfgang Wächter (left) and Ernst Becker, founders of ZFB, with paper splitter.

But the most pervasive problem for libraries is the deteriorating effects of the acid that has been present in the paper since the day it was made. What’s the solution?

A process called paper splitting. Developed in the 1870’s, paper splitting was a treatment process that involved carefully splitting the paper’s two sides, inserting a stabilizing core layer of paper between them, and then re-attaching the two sides again. The splitting process is made possible by the use of a special gel that is applied to both sides of the paper but that does not penetrate the middle. When dry, the paper can be split in two.

The process works both as a means to stop the damaging effects of acid and restore flexibility to the page. But traditional paper splitting is a manual process that is time consuming, expensive and can never catch up with the rate of decay of the millions of books and documents whose useful life on paper is almost over. In the mid 1960’s when the problem was beginning to be acknowledged as a serious problem many in the West believed the solution was to record each page of historic books onto microfilm.

But others, such as Dr. Wolfgang Wächter in the then East German city of Leipzig, believed that microfilm was not a satisfactory solution. Prof. Wächter, working with a small group of scientists and conservators started to tackle the problem of paper decomposition at the German Library or the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig. Finding a way to stop the decaying process in books became a priority in the former communist state where there was little access to microfiche machines.

Dr. Wächter also felt a personal responsibility to find a solution that would preserve for posterity the original copies of books, manuscripts and other historical documents in his care.

The City of Leipzig is known as the ”City of Books”. Besides being a famous capital for industrial trade and book fairs, the first book was printed in Leipzig in 1481. In addition, the first daily newspaper was published in Leipzig in 1660. The University of Leipzig, founded in 1409, houses one of the most valuable library collections in Germany. It was from this city that Dr. Wächter set out to find a way to prevent old books from turning to dust.

“The threat is to be seen in the fact that the decomposition of the acidic pulp paper is progressing faster than the speed at which you can preserve it with today’s methods,” said Dr. Wächter. Working with few resources and on their own through the 1970’s, the group developed improvements to the paper splitting process. They imagined ways in which the process could be mechanized so that the capacity to preserve historic materials could be increased enough to meet the challenge.

This work attracted international attention and by the late 1980’s, when German reunification became a reality, a close cooperation began to develop between the Baden-Wüttemberg Archive Administration, a West German company called Becker Preservotec GmbH and the German Library. The Leipzig institution merged with the German Library Frankfurt in 1990.

Immediately following the end of the Cold War, Dr. Wächter, the Leipzig archivist from the German Library, met Mr. Ernst Becker, the head of Becker Engineering, located in the former West Germany. They talked about building machines that could preserve old paper on an industrial scale.

Adapting what Dr. Wächter learned about paper splitting technology, Mr. Becker’s engineering company went to work to develop machines that could perform the delicate process. In 1998, Messrs. Becker and Wächter formed a new company called ZFB GmbH (or the Zentrum für Buch-Erhaltung GmbH, meaning The Center for Book Preservation) in Leipzig that today offers the first and only full service solution to the worldwide document decomposition problem.

At the heart of ZFB’s operations is a machine developed by Becker Engineering that is capable of splitting up to 5,000 leaves of paper per day. The company’s roster of clients includes the National Library in Berlin, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, the Cleveland Public Library, New York City Public Library and Yale University Library. In addition to de-acidification of paper, the company also restores book-bindings and covers.

In the United States, ZFB is working in New York, Austin and Chicago on preservation assignments.

Recently, the company announced a 50-50 partnership to form a new sister company with the Stanford University Library in Palo Alto, CA. The new venture is building a paper splitting facility near Stanford that is nearly identical to the one in Leipzig. Stanford’s library has more than 8 million volumes, many of which are in urgent need of preservation.

Massive paper restoration can also be needed to preserve documents from the more recent past. After World War II, The International Tracing Service (ITS) was established under the Geneva Convention to organize and preserve the war records of the victims of the Nazi era. This collection of documents includes detailed records of people who were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, forced laborers and persons displaced by the war. More than 30 million individual documents from an estimated 17 million former victims of Nazism are now preserved by the ITS in Bad Arolsen. The documents are used primarily to conduct tracing service work and to award pensions or reparations. However, much of these war records are written on poor quality paper and are decaying. The ITS formed an alliance with ZFB to handle this massive job and help it carry on with its humanitarian work.

For further information about ZFB GmbH, see www.zfb.com.—