For the past couple months, we had a live-in
visitor at the Book Conservation lab. He
appeared unexpectedly one day as Eliza was preparing some leather for a
label. He didn’t say much (or do much,
really) but he did seem keenly interested in eating. We called him
Maurice. Trying to be good hosts, we
gave him a jar to live in and some scraps of leather to munch on, and even
praised him when he shed his skin as he progressed through his larval state.
Allow me to introduce Maurice the furniture carpet beetle...
Yes, I know it is strange that
the Lab played host to a well-known pest—one that is named for its predilection
for eating antiques. Perhaps, if you
are squeamish about insects, you are wondering why we didn’t dispose of him
immediately upon finding him. But Maurice
is a good reminder of something every conservator has to consider at some point
in their career—how to handle insects that can potentially cause extensive damage
to the organic material of our cultural heritage?
 |
|
Larva and
adult furniture carpet beetles, Anthrenus flavipes.
Photo by
Dong-Hwan Choe.
|
Thankfully, those who have
come before us have developed a good system for handling visitors like Maurice:
Integrated Pest Management, also known as IPM.
IPM is a method used by museums and libraries across the country in order to aid in the
control and prevention of pest-related damage in paper-based collections. The reason that this is so important is that
insects are often attracted to adhesives and starches found in the components
of libraries and archives, and will occasionally attack the paper itself. This leads to the loss of structural
components, and in some cases, to extensive damage to precious information
 |
| insect damage, the Carter Library, Photo by Quinn Ferris |
 | ||||||
| insect damage, the Carter Library; photo by Quinn Ferris |
However, it is obvious that
the little critters are not too picky—in the picture on the left, several
different types of material, both cloth and paper, have been damaged by pest
activity. Thankfully the closely
monitored and controlled environment of the stacks at the Small Special
Collection ensures that these books will not suffer further degradation.
A main facet of IPM is to
prevent most effectively without causing harm to the collections themselves or
their stewards—therefore no pesticides are used. IPM has five main components in its
implementation: Inspection and Monitoring, Identification of Pests, Climate and
Habitat Modification and Treatment and Prevention.
Because Maurice was the only
of his kind found in the lab, we concluded that he was probably accidentally
brought in as a tiny larva attached to a human, or he rolled in through the door one day (furniture carpet beetles do live "in the wild"), hard to say really but he was not symptomatic of an overall pest infestation at UVa. Thank Goodness! But having Maurice on hand allowed us to identify
him—the most important step in determining whether a pest is a serious risk and
how to manage it— and monitor him for a few weeks just to see what would happen
if he had a steady snacking supply.
So, what did happen? Not much.
Maurice followed the football season and rooted passionately for the
Hoos. Eventually, he did metamorphose
out of his exoskeleton into a slightly larger and hairier version of
himself. But, lacking a community of
other furniture carpet beetles, or water, he mostly just hung
out and monitored the goings on in the lab until we found him legs up one morning in his jar.
For more information on
Integrated Pest Management in Libraries and Museums, you can browse the
following links:
-Quinn Morgan Ferris
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