When the Public Feared That Library Books Could Spread Deadly Diseases

“The great book scare” created a panic that you could catch an infection just by lending from the library

Joseph Hayes

Dusty Book

On September 12, 1895, a Nebraskan named Jessie Allan died of tuberculosis . Such deaths were a common occurrence at the turn of the 20th century, but Allan’s case of “consumption” reportedly came from an unusual source. She was a librarian at the Omaha Public Library, and thanks to a common fear of the time, people worried that Allan’s terminal illness may have come from a book.

“The death of Miss Jessie Allan is doubly sad because of the excellent reputation which her work won for her and the pleasant affection which all librarians who knew her had come to feel for her, and because her death has given rise to a fresh discussion as to the possibility of infection from contagious diseases through library books,” the Library Journal , published by the American Library Association, wrote in October of 1895.

Allan’s death occurred during what is sometimes called the “great book scare.” This scare, now mostly forgotten, was a frantic panic during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that contaminated books—particularly ones lent out from libraries—could spread deadly diseases. The panic sprung from “the public understanding of the causes of diseases as germs,” says Annika Mann, a professor at Arizona State University and author of Reading Contagion: The Hazards of Reading in the Age of Print .

Librarians worried that Allan’s death, which became a focal point of the scare, would dissuade people from borrowing books and lead to a decline in support for public libraries.

“Possibly there is some danger from this source; since the bacillus was discovered danger is found to lurk in places hitherto unsuspected,” the Library Journal continues. “But the greater danger, perhaps, comes in over-estimating this source of danger and frightening people into a nervous condition.”

Concerns about spreading disease through the lending of books would have serious impacts on the proliferation and growth of libraries. At a time when support for public libraries was growing nationwide , book-lending institutions faced a major challenge from the disease scare.

Illness was rife in this period in both Britain and the United States. Epidemics including “tuberculosis, smallpox and scarlet fever” were taking “a fearful toll in urban areas,” according to scholar Gerald S. Greenberg’s 1988 article “ Books as Disease Carriers, 1880-1920 .” For a populace that was already on edge about fatal diseases, the idea of contaminated library books passing from hand to hand became a significant source of anxiety.

Omaha Public Library

Books were viewed as possible vehicles of disease transmission for several reasons. At a time when public libraries were relatively new, it was easy to worry about who had last handled a book and whether they might have been ill. Books that appeared to be benign might conceal diseases that could be unleashed “in the act of opening them,” Mann says. People were concerned about health conditions caused by “inhaling book dust,” Greenberg writes, and the possibility of “contracting cancer by coming in contact with malignant tissue expectorated upon the pages.”

The great book scare reached fever pitch in the summer of 1879, Mann says. That year, a librarian in Chicago named W.F. Poole reported that he had been asked whether books could transmit disease. Upon further investigation, Poole located several doctors who claimed to have knowledge of disease-spreading books. People in England started asking the same question, and concerns about diseased books developed “roughly contemporaneously” in the United States and Britain, Mann says.

A wave of legislation in the United Kingdom sought to attack the problem. Although the Public Health Act of 1875 didn’t refer specifically to library books, it did prohibit lending “bedding clothing rags or other things” that had been exposed to infection. The law was updated in 1907 with explicit reference to the dangers of spreading disease via book lending, and those suspected of having an infectious disease were forbidden to borrow, lend or return library books, with fines of up to 40 shillings for such crimes, equivalent to roughly $200 today.

“If any person knows that he is suffering from an infectious disease he shall not take any book or use or cause any book to be taken for his use from any public or circulating library,” states Section 59 of Britain's Public Health Acts Amendments Act of 1907 .

In the United States, legislation to prevent the spread of epidemics through book lending was left to the states. Across the nation, anxieties were “localized around the institution of the library” and “around the book,” Mann says. Librarians were victimized among the growing scare.

In response to the panic, libraries were expected to disinfect books suspected of carrying diseases. Numerous methods were used for disinfecting books, including holding the books in vapor from “carbolic acid crystals heated in an oven” in Sheffield, England, and sterilization via “formaldehyde solution” in Pennsylvania, according to Greenberg. In New York, books were disinfected with steam. A study in Dresden, Germany, “revealed that soiled book pages rubbed with wet fingers yielded many microbes.”

Reading Room NY Library

An eccentric experimenter named William R. Reinick was concerned about multiple supposed illnesses and deaths from books. To test the danger of contracting disease, Greenberg writes, he exposed 40 guinea pigs to pages from contaminated books. According to Reinick, all 40 of his test subjects died. Elsewhere, experiments involved giving monkeys a drink of milk on a platter of ostensibly contaminated literature, as Mann writes in Reading Contagion .

All these experiments may have been extremely unusual, but they ultimately came to similar conclusions: However slight the risk of infection from a book might be, it couldn’t be completely discounted.

Newspapers also referred to the dangers of disease-spreading books. An early reference in the Chicago Daily Tribune from June 29, 1879, mentions that the chance of contracting diseases from library books is “very small” but could not be ruled out entirely. The November 12, 1886, edition of the Perrysburg Journal in Ohio lists “books” as one of the items to be removed from the rooms of the sick. Eight days later, another Ohio newspaper, The Ohio Democrat , outright declared, “The disease [scarlet fever] has been spread by circulating libraries; picture books having been taken therefrom to amuse the patient, and returned without being disinfected.”

As newspapers continued to cover the topic, “the fear intensified,” Mann says, leading to “extreme phobia about the book.”

By 1900, pressure was starting to mount. In January, Scranton, Pennsylvania, ordered libraries to halt book distribution to prevent the spread of scarlet fever, according to Greenberg. The use of chemicals to sterilize books became more common, even though such practices were also thought to harm the books. But as bad as sterilization was, a worse tactic loomed on the horizon: The Western Massachusetts Library Club recommended that books suspected of carrying diseases “should be burned and not returned to the library.”

In Britain as well as the United States, books were incinerated to prevent the spread of disease. Recommendations from doctors that contaminated books be burnt were even featured in the Library Journal , Mann writes in Reading Contagion .

Chicago Water Tower Reading Room

After much tribulation, reason eventually took hold. People began to question whether infection via books was a serious threat or simply an idea that has been spread through public fears. After all, librarians were not reporting higher illness rates as compared to other occupations, according to Greenberg. Librarians began to address the panic directly, “trying to defend the institution,” Mann says, their attitude characterized by “a lack of fear.”

In New York, political attempts during the spring of 1914 to have books disinfected en masse were roundly defeated after objections from the New York Public Library and a threat of “citywide protest.” Elsewhere, the panic began to subside as well. Books that were previously thought to have been infected were lent again without further issue. In Britain, experiment after experiment by doctors and hygiene professors reported next to no chance of contracting a disease from a book. The panic was coming to an end.

The “great book scare” rose from a combination of new theories about infection and a distaste for the concept of public libraries themselves. Many Americans and Britons feared the library because it provided easy access to what they saw as obscene or subversive books, argues Mann. And while fears of disease were distinct from fears of seditious content, “opponents of the public library system” helped stoke the fires of the book scare, Greenberg writes.

Even as the panic subsided, the idea that books could spread disease lingered for some time. As late as February 21, 1913, the Highland Recorder newspaper in Virginia stated that “public library books may scatter scarlet fever.” As late as the 1940s, Greenberg writes, medical professionals “in Britain, America and even Japan” were still debating whether books could unleash dormant diseases onto the public.

The perceived danger of public access to reading material, it seems, can take as much of a physical as an intellectual form.

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Used Books May Be Germy, But They Won't Make You Sick

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Remember books? Words printed on paper bound between two covers? When Gutenberg introduced the printing press in 1450, books became objects of extraordinary wonder that changed the world. Throughout the centuries these fascinating tactile objects educated and amused, instructed and advised, kept us company on sick days, and curled up with us on rainy nights, sparking our imaginations.

In 18th-century America, lending libraries became the great egalitarian sanctuaries of knowledge where farmers and financiers alike could access for free all the mysteries of the world. But in our current virtual, ephemeral, device-driven culture, books have become marginalized, undervalued clutter, oftentimes casually thrown away. In some cases, bona fide treasures are literally being tossed into garbage bins and kicked to the curb.

Yes, books can end up in some unimaginably filthy places. And sick people sneezing on, touching and tainting the pages of public library books makes a person gulp and shudder to ponder where pretty much any book has been since Gutenberg first fired up his press in 1450.

A couple of cases in point.

Vancouver, British Columbia 2017

Ankara, turkey 2018, los angeles, 2017, book germs for bookworms.

A homeless man recently salvaged four rough condition 1870s Moroccan leather books from an alleyway trash heap. Turns out the four volumes titled "The Far East", consist of 24 issues of a rare English-language newsmagazine published in Shanghai, China, between 1870 and 1878. In 2009, Sothebys in London auctioned 118 issues of the same periodical with 112 original albumen prints — the largest collection to surface on the market in 30 years — for just over $42,000. Said Don Stewart , veteran bookseller and owner of renowned MacLeod's Books in downtown Vancouver, who purchased the volumes for an undisclosed amount, "It's the best thing ever to come out of the garbage that I've ever encountered."

Over a period of time, sanitation workers in the Turkish capital collected thousands of discarded books while making their garbage pick-ups. Instead of abandoning them to landfills, these thoughtful, curious stewards of knowledge rescued the books and compiled a library that now houses 6,000 volumes in every imaginable genre. Originally the library was set up only for the sanitation workers and their families, but as word spread, people began to donate cast-off books and the library opened to the public in September 2017. Now a vital part of the community, the library is located in an old brick building at the headquarters of the city's sanitation department. The collection of salvaged volumes has grown so large that the library now loans books to schools, various educational programs and even prisons.

Sick at home with the flu, Cheyenne Deibert, a 16-year-old high school sophomore wondered if she was getting contagious bacteria all over the library book she was reading. She then began to wonder if library books in general might be potential carriers of infectious disease. With that in mind, she created an award-winning international science fair project to find out. With the help of local librarians, she chose popular books that were checked out often and rubbed methodically taken swabs from each book onto four petri dishes per book. Two of the dishes contained agar , a substance bacteria thrive upon. And two dishes contained methylene blue , a chemical that thwarts the growth of certain bacteria while enabling others. Next, she put the plates in an oven at body temperature to find out how many microbial colonies were present. And guess what fearless library card holders? Not much bacteria was present on the books she tested, and none of the swabs exhibited E. coli .

With that in mind, say hello to fomites.

A fomite is any nonliving object or substance capable of carrying infectious organisms, such as viruses or bacteria, and transferring them from one individual to another. In an email, Jesse T. Jacob, M.D., associate professor of medicine and hospital epidemiologist at Emory University Hospital Midtown, says that books and e-readers can be considered fomites, but, "the infection risk is very low."

Asked if it is possible to get sick from touching a library book if, for example, someone with the flu licked their finger to turn the pages, or sneezed and coughed on the book, Jacob replies, "It's possible but unlikely. Influenza can survive on paper and cloth for less than 12 hours . It's usually the respiratory secretions that carry the highest burden of virus, and it would not be expected on spit. So licking a finger and turning a page is likely less contagious than picking your nose and then turning the page!"

"Most respiratory viruses," Jacob continues, "are transmitted by indirect contact, such as when a person touches an object (think doorknobs and handles) that has been contaminated, and then inadvertently touches a mucous membrane such as the lining of the eyes, nose and mouth. While bacteria can potentially be spread by books or tablets, in most people it will not cause infection."

Asked what kinds of bacteria and viruses have the strongest survivability on paper, Jacob says some bacteria survive better than others. "Gram positive bacteria such as strep and staph are better at persisting on surfaces in general, followed by viruses."

Jacob even suggests that, because so many people are allergic to dust and mold, they're probably bigger problems than bacteria or viruses on books. "Clean your hands and avoid touching your face or mucous membranes with potentially contaminated fingers to avoid catching a virus," he says.

So if you perchance regret tossing that once-cherished, dog-eared, underlined, pizza-stained copy of whatever it was that first ignited your youthful passions and awakened your sensibilities, why not revisit another well-loved copy by checking it out at your local library? According to Jacob, the odds of it making you sick are, "very low."

But the odds of it making you happy are very, very high.

Arsenic was once known as an "inheritance powder" because it could mean "curtains" for a rich old auntie. But people thought nothing of adorning their walls with arsenic-laced wallpaper which shed potentially lethal dust particles that could be inadvertently inhaled or ingested. Published in 1874 by Robert M. Kedzie, a Union surgeon during the American Civil War, the pages of " Shadows from the Walls of Death " might kill you if you touch them without wearing gloves. Kedzie wrote the book to warn people about the danger of decorating with arsenic-saturated wallpaper.

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article:

Rest Room Hand Blow Hot Air Blower Dryer.	 "

The Truth About Germs In Library Books

books library germs

A few years ago, I took Fifty Shades Of Grey out of the library (I didn't just buy in on Kindle like a normal person). Only after getting the volume home and flipping through its folded and stained pages did I start to wondered about the germs in library books . When you try to picture all the hands that these shared books come into contact with over their long life, it's safe to assume the paper is a veritable garden of bacteria. So if you're trying to concentrate on the words on the page, not the germs on the page, just how dirty are these reads?

Would I have checked Fifty Shades out if I had known about the 2013 test of popular books in Belgium's Antwerp Public Library? Fifty Shades turned up positive for traces of both cocaine and herpes . Herpes! The other books tested, which included a children's book and some thrillers, also tested positive for cocaine. Does that mean our American versions of Fifty Shades are crawling with drugs and germs? Not necessarily — Antwerp is the second largest city in Belgium, and its lovely seaport makes it an ideal for lots of drug trafficking . Thankfully, the levels of contamination found on the book covers were not enough to get you high or give you a cold sore.

books library germs

Worrying about the dangers of library book contamination is nothing new. Over a century ago, a 1911 article titled “The Disinfection of Books”, fanned the flames of hystria. Author L.B. Nice wrote in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, " Books seem well adapted for carrying small-pox , measles, scarlet fever, trachoma, diphtheria, erysipelas, dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Yet so far as I have been able to find, no satisfactory method for the disinfection of books is being used anywhere in this country. Books are a particular diversion of invalids and convalescents, therefore they are in much danger of becoming infected." Sorry invalids, time to look for a new hobby. Perhaps counting ceiling tiles would be safer?

Nice also warned that people could contract and spread disease through books with the " uncleanly habit of moistening their fingers in their mouths when turning the leaves." To prove the theory, one scientist cut out the dirtiest parts of well-used library books, mixed the paper with a saline solution, centrifuged the liquid, and injected it into guinea pigs. Many of those poor guinea pigs died of strep, tuberculosis, and sepsis.

But as any adult will tell their two-year-old — books are for reading, not eating. And I guarantee that no librarian would recommend making yourself a grimy book water cocktail. And the issue of book contamination isn't just isolated to libraries. A 1994 study found bacteria on books belonging to libraries and family households alike. However, they were both deemed safe as neither was " a potential source of transmission ."

While you are not putting yourself at risk of infection by taking out a library book, we might not be entirely in the clear. In 2012 people started to report sightings of bedbugs in library furniture across the country. Pesticide specialist Alicia Leytem informed the Wall Street Journal , that there is an easy solution for those concerned. She recommends bringing the library books home in a cloth bag, and putting the bag in a hot dryer for a half-hour which " will kill any bugs or eggs .” L.B. Nice, essentially recommended the same thing in 1911, touting steam and "dry hot air" as handy ways to kill any buggies and bacteria in the books . Even so, I might save myself the hassle and just buy the book on tape of Fifty Shades Darker .

Keep calm and read on!

Images: Pexels , Pixabay , Giphy

books library germs

kid read book with face mask

Here's What The Experts Say About Whether Coronavirus Can Live On Books

While the days of wiping down groceries seem to be behind us, there are still so many questions about how long the virus remains on surfaces. With the start of school just around the corner and libraries across the country beginning to open up, parents are forced to contend with yet another concern related to the transmission of COVID-19: Can coronavirus live on books?

In June, research conducted by The Institute of Museum and Library Services as part of the Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums (REALM) project found the virus undetectable "after one day on the covers of hardback and softback books as well as the DVD case” and after three days on the "paper inside of a book and mylar book jackets." Does that mean books need to go into quarantine for a few days when they're returned to the library or after reading time at school?

Probably not. "The fact that coronavirus can survive on surfaces for several hours is not enough alone to lead to transmission of infection," Emily Sickbert-Bennett Ph.D. , Director of Infection Prevention, UNC Hospitals, tells Romper in an email. It's important to remember that all germs can survive for variable amounts of times on various surfaces, she adds, but "the entire chain of transmission" needs to take place before an infection via surface contamination can happen. As explained by Dr. Sickbert-Bennett, that "chain of transmission" looks something like this:

  • An infected individual contaminates a surface of with their own droplet aerosols.
  • The virus on the surface survives, remaining capable of causing infection (this is subject to environmental conditions such as time, temperature, humidity, and UV exposure).
  • Someone susceptible touches the exact location that was contaminated, where viable virus remains.
  • Enough viable virus transfers to the person’s hand at a dose large enough to cause an infection.
  • The person’s contaminated hand "inoculates" their own nose or mouth while still contaminated (before hand washing/sanitizing).
  • Enough viable virus transfers to the person’s nose/mouth to be capable of causing an infection.

books library germs

“Is it possible that COVID could be transmitted by a book to a person? The question is, is that biologically possible? The answer is yes,” William Schaffner, M.D. , Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine tells Romper in an email.

"But, does it occur with any frequency? In fact, has it ever been documented? There’s not a single research study that’s reported that. So, is it likely to be frequent and substantially transmitted? No.”

If you're worried about libraries or book-sharing, Dr. Shaffner recommends running a disinfectant wipe it over the external surface of the book very quickly and washing hands thoroughly.

“Even if this virus were in low concentrations on the surface of the book, the virus is not gonna jump off and bite you,” Dr. Schaffner says. “If you touch the book and wash your hands, you’ll be okay.”

"The key interrupter in the chain of transmission is handwashing — in particular before touching nose and mouth," agrees Dr. Sickbert-Bennett. "Mask use is also important in that way in that it blocks you from inadvertently touching your nose and mouth with potentially contaminated hands."

In other words, wash your hands, wear a mask and keep reading.

If you think you’re showing symptoms of coronavirus , which include fever, shortness of breath, and cough, call your doctor before going to get tested. If you’re anxious about the virus’s spread in your community, visit the CDC for up-to-date information and resources, or seek out mental health support . You can find all of Romper’s parents + coronavirus coverage here.

William Schaffner, M.D. , Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Emily Sickbert-Bennett, Ph.D. , Director of Infection Prevention, UNC Hospitals

Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums (REALM) Information Hub: A Covid-19 Research Project

books library germs

books library germs

How to Disinfect Books: A Discussion

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Tirzah Price

Most of Tirzah Price's life decisions have been motivated by a desire to read as many books as humanly possible. Tirzah holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has worked as an independent bookseller and librarian. She’s also the author of the Jane Austen Murder Mysteries, published by HarperTeen, and Bibliologist at TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations . Follow her on Twitter @TirzahPrice .

View All posts by Tirzah Price

Disclaimer: The information in this article about how to disinfect books should not be taken as health advice, but is intended to be a collection of advice from various sources that includes known and ongoing studies in how to reduce exposure to various viruses, including COVID-19. Refer to cdc.gov for more information, or seek medical advice if you think you might have come into contact with COVID-19.

There’s nothing like a global pandemic to make one stop and think about all of the surfaces a person touches in a day…and how many of those surfaces could be a possible exposure point to all sorts of germs. Millions of people rely on the library for materials beyond books, but as libraries reopen we all want to know how to disinfect books we share so that books and stories are the only thing spreading through the community.

The question of how to sanitize books is particularly tough because of the obvious: Books are made of paper and sanitizing products can damage paper. Nonetheless, cleanliness is something that libraries have been thinking about for a long time, even before COVID-19 appeared. Because of this, if you’re concerned about disease spread you should chat with your librarians to understand what measures they’re taking, and so that you don’t do anything that might actually damage a material. (In general, librarians prefer that you let them take care of book sanitation and maintenance because they have their own protocols and tricks, and if you damage a book by accident you’ll have to pay to replace it.)

Whether you’re keen on returning to the library, or picking up books from your local Little Free Library, or you just want to swap titles with a friend, here’s how to do so safely!

Be Careful About Using Lysol Wipes or Other Cleaners on Books

While it is true that some libraries (mine included) use Lysol wipes on book covers, you should be careful about doing so, and know that the ALA does not officially recommend it . Most book covers have a shiny finish that make the cover somewhat resistant to moisture, but it’s best to not get them too wet. Not all dust jackets will be resistant to moisture, either—it depends on the paper. Most libraries cover their hardcovers with a plastic, water resistant covering that can be gently wiped down with a damp Lysol wipe or cloth. Some libraries even cover their paperback covers with sticky plastic contact paper, to help preserve the life of the book. These covers can be wiped down gently as well, as long as you take care to not wet the pages or interior of the book. If you decide to wipe down your book covers, make sure you stand the books upright so that the covers can fully dry before shelving, otherwise you can create the perfect environment for some moldering pages—or the covers will dry and stick together, and you’ll have to tear them apart, further damaging your books.

In general, my library has used Lysol wipes to clean down the books that are returned in the book drop if the covers are sticky or dirty, or if it’s flu season. We do this primarily for staff protection as we check in and shelve a book, because even if you do wipe your book covers down and properly dry them, that doesn’t take care of the insides of the book, which contain hundred if not thousands of square inches of paper surfaces that germs can hang out on. Which leads me to my next point…

white wooden bookshelf

Time Is the Best Disinfectant

No one likes to hear it, but letting your books chill in their own quarantine is the best way to ensure you’re not passing along germs. The ALA is recommending that libraries put materials into a 24–48 hour quarantine when they’re returned to the library . This is based on an early study that estimates that COVID-19 virus can live on cardboard for up to 24 hours. Cold and flu viruses can also live on surfaces, sometimes for up to a week, but are generally infectious for 48 hours, according to the CDC .

The best way to ensure you’re not going to be infected from a shared book is to put it in its own quarantine for at least 48 hours before cracking it open. Many libraries are quarantining their books for 24–48 books upon return, but I recommend you also quarantine your books for 48 hours when you pick them up. Pick up your holds at the library while wearing gloves and a mask, and then stick them in a designated quarantine bag (that you wash in between uses) and don’t touch them until 48 hours have passed! Ask about your library’s material quarantine procedures, but don’t trust that simply because they quarantine returned materials that you’ll be safe—staff could inadvertently infect materials, and so can browsing patrons.

Don’t Apply UV Light or Microwave Books

Many people have wondered about non-liquid disinfectant tools, and unfortunately, they’re just not safe for books. According to the ALA, UV light is not recommended because of the high exposure time that is required to kill COVID-19 and other viruse s. Not to mention that UV light can only kill the viruses it can touch, and there are too many nooks and crannies between pages and binding that can hold germs. Plus, longterm exposure to UV light can damage a book.

You also do not want to apply heat to your book for any reason. Not only is this extremely damaging to the book, it’s a fire hazard! One thing you for sure should never, ever do is microwave a book, like a patron at Kent District Library attempted to do recently —most library books contain hidden sensors that are made with metal and therefore are unsafe in microwaves! Always assume your library book has one of these, even if you can’t find it. (Librarians make them difficult to find and remove on purpose!)

Don’t Share Materials If You Are Sick

In general, you shouldn’t be in contact with books that aren’t your own if you’re sick—it’s just common courtesy. That especially goes if you think you might have come in contact with COVID-19! It’s tough to be away from the library right now, but use it as an opportunity to reread your collection or get caught up on your TBR. But if you do share books, remember above all else that they need their own quarantine period, too!

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Library books could come with a side of germs.

A bookworm did an experiment to discover how many bacteria build up on books

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Could library books be hiding bacteria? A teen did an experiment to find out.

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By Bethany Brookshire

May 18, 2017 at 5:50 am

LOS ANGELES, Calif., — There’s a lot to love about libraries. But could those thousands of free books be harboring bacteria? Cheyenne Deibert, 16, created a science fair project to find out. Her results will make book lovers heave a sigh of relief — most tomes are perfectly clear. She also showed that when it comes to microbes, it’s not how many times a book gets checked out, it’s how recently that book has been handled.

The sophomore at Clarksville Academy in Tennessee brought her results here, to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Created by Society for Science & the Public and sponsored by Intel, the competition this year brought together nearly 1,800 students from more than 75 countries to show off their winning science fair projects. (The Society also publishes  Science News for Students and this blog).

Cheyenne admits she’s a real bookworm. But reading while home sick, she began to see her books in a different light. “If I’m reading these while I’m sick, there’s bacteria all over,” she recalls thinking. “I’m touching these library books, passing them from person to person. Do they have bacteria?” She knew that germs could end up on items that are handled frequently, such as money. The teen decided to test her suspicions that books may too. And she did it with an experiment.

350_Cheyenne_library_bacteria.png

With the help of local librarians, the teen collected 12 books that had been published on or after August 1, 2016. They included Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo , Mary Roach’s Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War and Beth Harbison’s Show Addicts Anonymous . The teen aimed for books that were about the same size and could be found in the “popular” section. She wanted “books people would actually read [and touch a lot], as opposed to looking at page 300 for a reference,” she explains.

She sorted the books by how often they had been checked out — zero, one, two and three times. Cheyenne hypothesized that books that were checked out more often would host more bacteria.

The teen carefully swabbed the first page of the first chapter of each book as well as the blank page opposite to it. She then rubbed her swabs on four petri dishes per book. Two of the petri dishes contained only agar — a gellike substance many bacteria like to eat. The other half contained agar with methylene blue . This chemical inhibits the growth of some species of bacteria but encourages others. It helped Cheyenne determine if certain species that might be harmful were present, such as E. coli .  

To keep the dishes near body temperature (around 37° Celsius or 98.6° Fahrenheit), Cheyenne put them in an oven for 47 hours. Then she took the plates out and counted how many bacterial colonies she could see.

Of the 12 books, seven grew no bacteria at all. With the five that did grow germs, the teen found that her hypothesis had not been right: The number of times a book had been checked out didn’t seem to affect how many microbes were present. 

What she found

Cheyenne looked at the number of days between when a book had last been returned to the library and when she started her experiment. Those sitting in the library for only three days tended to have more bacteria than those that had last been returned 20 days before her tests, the teen found. This makes sense, she notes. If a book is sitting around untouched, the bacteria in its pages might die off. And with no new readers, new bacteria are not being added. But if the tome had been checked out recently, microbes might still be hanging out.

Overall, not many microbes showed up on the books she tested. None of the swabs transferred  E. coli  to the dishes. The teen compared her findings to results from scientific papers on library-book bacteria. The authors of those papers found bacteria and fungi on library books , and some of those germs might be resistant to antibiotic drugs. But like Cheyenne, they didn’t find high levels of microbes. They also concluded that fungi (such as molds) were probably more worrisome than bacteria. Mold can be harmful for people with lung problems such as asthma and cause disease in people with weak immune systems.

That’s not the end of Cheyenne’s investigations. The teen now would like to look into how long bacteria from someone’s hand might survive on a book’s pages, and if there are more microbes at different times of year.

For now, her data indicate, librarians (and book lovers) don’t have much to worry about. Cheyenne notes, however, that she does wash her hands after reading. Just in case.

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Is it safe to borrow library books? Your COVID-19 questions answered

From asthma to proper mask wearing, here's what you’re asking us today.

books library germs

Social Sharing

 We're answering your questions about the pandemic. Send yours to [email protected] and we'll answer as many as we can. We'll publish a selection of answers every weekday online, and also put some questions to the experts during The National and on CBC News Network. So far we've received more than 38,000 emails from all corners of the country.

How safe will it be to borrow library books?

Jan A., a librarian and school teacher in Vancouver, wonders how to make sure books are safe to be loaned out and returned once libraries reopen.

"I currently have over 1,000 books signed out to students," she writes. "I'd like to know if the virus could be present on returning library books. Some of the books are paperback, and some of the books have mylar or laminated plastic covers."

According to Dr. Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, the precautions for books should be the same as anything else you come into contact with. 

"Book borrowing is a bit like grocery shopping," said Furness. "You are touching items and bringing them into your house. We can't wash or boil books, obviously. So, the thing to do is to clean your hands after touching them before touching your face, and to let them sit for 24 hours."

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"The virus on a book should be completely inactive after 24 hours," Furness said.

Coronaviruses are most commonly spread  via respiratory droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or by close, prolonged personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands.

"Libraries are not usually crowded but they do get a lot of traffic over the course of the day, so I would have hand sanitizer with me and I'd use it after touching anything, such as door handles," Furness said.

The most important thing to remember, he says, no matter where you are or what you're dealing with, is to not touch your face and to keep good hand hygiene.

"Touch matters a lot," he said. "Any time you're not 100 per cent sure in the age of COVID, be mindful of what your hands are doing. Your hands won't make you sick, but your hands touching your face can. That's the last step in the chain of transmission."

What's the best way to wear a mask?

The face mask has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the pandemic. But many Canadians tell us they're alarmed by the mask faux pas of others.

"I keep on seeing people wearing their mask under their nose," wrote Claude C. "I've told some of them they need to cover their nose … and they either say it's too hard to breathe, or they only lower it to talk."

"Not to mention they are touching their face each time they manipulate the mask," he adds.

Claude's right.  

Furness says wearing a mask can be dangerous if worn incorrectly or if people have incorrect expectations. 

Here are some mask basics for those who may be afraid to ask.

First, make sure you're putting it on, and taking it off, properly. That means washing your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds — or cleaning your hands with an alcohol-based sanitizer — before putting it on and taking it off.

WATCH | Infection prevention specialist Brenda Earles demonstrates:

Handle the mask only by the ear straps, placing the fabric over your face from above your nose to your chin. And while you may be tempted to fiddle with it while you're out, try to imagine that the front of the mask is contaminated, so keep your hands off. 

When taking it off, handle it only by the straps again, and discard disposable masks immediately into a garbage bin or bag. Washable masks should go directly into the wash or be stored in a closed bag until you can launder it. Then wash or sanitize your hands again.

Read more about  proper disposal of used protective equipment.

Is someone with asthma more at-risk?

Abbey L. from Port Credit Secondary School in Mississauga, Ont., is wondering if there's anything extra that people with asthma need to do to stay safe. 

Asthma is listed by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) as one of the underlying health conditions that put one at greater risk for COVID-19, along with diabetes, hypertension, chronic lung disease and a weakened immune system, among others. 

"There's no evidence that you are more likely to catch the virus if you have asthma," according to respirologist Dr. Samir Gupta. 

However, if you catch it, it's likely you may have "a more severe form" of the infection.

WATCH | COVID-19 could be more severe in people with asthma:

books library germs

COVID-19 could be more severe in people with asthma

"We know that asthma tends to flare up when people get viruses," said Gupta. "That's one of the common reasons people have asthma flare-ups and often end up in the emergency room." 

He said the virus that causes COVID-19 may cause a similar asthmatic flare-up and a more severe infection.

Dr. Lisa Barrett from Dalhousie University's division of infectious diseases agrees. 

She said it's likely that asthmatics who get the infection "may develop more difficulty breathing and have more severe complications," even if they're young.

Barrett's number one precaution for those with asthma is to continue practising physical distancing and to stay at least two meters from people. 

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She also echoes the advice of health experts that includes washing your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, not touching your face, and wearing a mask when in public. 

"That's going to stay the same advice until we are well beyond the current situation with COVID-19," said Barrett.

WATCH | We're also answering your questions every night on The National : Last night, you asked our medical expert: Will public transit be safe?

books library germs

COVID-19: Is public transit going to be safe?

Thursday, we answered questions about organ donation and restaurant utensils .

Keep your questions coming by emailing us at [email protected]

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  • Is my mask reusable if I leave it out? Your COVID-19 questions answered

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Recommendations for Safe Handling

Covid-19 basics, centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) information, note on alternative disinfection methods from the cdc, recent publications on surface (fomite) transmission, realm project, realm literature review & testing, realm testing results.

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The Barbara Goldsmith Preservation & Conservation Department  does not recommend the quarantining of library materials at this time. It does recommend that library users and staff wash their hands with soap and water frequently. If soap and water are not readily available, use a hand sanitizer. All NYU library users and staff must follow NYU health protocols and guidelines.  

​SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the illness COVID-19. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the primary way the virus spreads is through person-to-person contact - through nasal discharge or saliva droplets when an infected person sneezes or coughs. The best way to prevent viral transmission is by practicing good hand-washing hygiene, wearing a face mask that covers both the nose, mouth, and chin, and practicing physical distancing of at least three feet (one meter) from others.   

According to the CDC’s Guidelines for Cleaning and Disinfecting Your Facility , the risk of becoming infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 from touching a surface is low. Cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces will decrease the risk of infection from surfaces.  Cleaning once per day may be sufficient when there are no known or suspected cases of COVID-19. 

Cleaning with a detergent disinfecting product on the EPA List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is recommended. 

The effectiveness of ultrasonic waves, high intensity UV radiation, and LED blue light against the virus that causes COVID-19 has not been fully established. 

See: Illuminating Engineering Society.  Guidance on the Use of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) in Museum Applications.   Research Paper, Illuminating Engineering Society, 2021.  This research advises against using any kind of UV to disinfect library materials, as the ultraviolet spectrum is extremely damaging to many kinds of collections objects. They allow that UV radiation to disinfect might be useful, but only as a supplement to standard procedures of avoiding the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which are cleaning surfaces, wearing masks, and washing hands.

CDC does not recommend the use of sanitizing tunnels. 

Fogging, fumigation, and wide-area or electrostatic spraying has several safety risks to consider and is therefore not recommended as the primarily cleaning and disinfection method.

CDC Science Brief: SARS-CoV-2 and Surface (Fomite) Transmission for Indoor Community Environments

A. M. Wilson, M. H. Weir, S. F. Bloomfield, E. A. Scott and K. A. Reynold, “Modeling COVID-19 infection risks for a single hand-to-fomite scenario and potential risk reductions offered by surface disinfection,” American Journal of Infection Control, vol. Article In Press, pp. 1-3, 2020.

  • Summary: The authors used quantitative microbial risk assessment to relate the effectiveness of surface disinfection to COVID-19 infection risk. High touch surfaces like door handles and faucets and most likely to facilitate coronavirus transmission and these should be targeted for disinfection.  Simulations show that in conditions with low viral bioburdens, median infection rates were below 1 in 1 million with or without disinfection. For higher viral bio burden scenarios, disinfection with CDC recommended disinfectants like 1000 ppm bleach solution or 70% ethanol were effective in reducing infection rates to below 1 in 1 million.

A. P. Harvey, E. R. Fuhrmeister, M. E. Cantrell, A. K. Pitol, S. J. M, J. E. Powers, M. L. Nadimpalli, T. R. Julian and A. J. Pickering, “Longitudinal monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on high-touch surfaces in a community setting,” Environmental Science & Technology Letters, pp. 168-175, 2020.

  • Summary: The study focused on non-porous, high touch surfaces like door handles. Using quantitative microbial risk assessment, the authors estimated the risk of infection from touching a contaminated surface to be low (less than 5 in 10,000).  This finding suggests that communities should focus on wearing masks and social distancing as the major means of reducing spread. 

A. K. Pitol and T. R. Julian, “Community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by fomites: Risks and risk reduction strategies,” Environmental Science and Technology Letters, 2020.

  • Summary: The authors developed a model to estimate the risk of fomite transmission. The concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is drawn from reported investigations of surface contamination in public spaces. The authors used two contact frequencies, high (every 1–20 min) and low (every 60–240 min). The infection scenario ranged from a 5% prevalence rate for the highest and a 0.2% prevalence rate for the lowest scenario. Based on this finding the authors determined that “Risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection from contact with a fomite in community settings are estimated to be low...and influenced by both the infection prevalence rate in the community and the frequency with which the fomite is contacted.” Hand hygiene is still the most effective method of reducing the risk of infection. 

E. A. Meyerowitz, A. Richterman, R. T. Gandhi and P. E. Sax, “Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: a review of viral, host, and environmental factors,” Annals of internal medicine, 2020.

  • Summary: The authors point out that there are no proven cases of fomite transmission. The few cases of presumed transmission occurred in situations where respiratory transmission has not been completely excluded. The authors conclude that “on the basis of currently available data, we suspect that the levels of viral RNA or live virus transiently remaining on surfaces are unlikely to cause infection, especially outside of settings with known active cases”.

G. Kampf, Y. Brüggemann, H. Kaba, J. Steinmann, S. Pfaender, S. Scheithauer and E. Steinmann, “Potential sources, modes of transmission and effectiveness of prevention measures against SARS-CoV-2,” Journal of Hospital Infection, 2020.

  • Summary:  In this literature review, the authors “aim to comprehensively summarize the current evidence on possible sources for SARS-CoV-2.” Regarding the potential for fomite transmission, the authors cite several studies that have shown that SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected on surfaces could not be cultured, meaning that the samples did not contain infectious virus. To quote, “in the close surrounding of COVID-19 patients in hospitals SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detected more frequently compared with surfaces outside the patient rooms but samples were so far consistently negative for infectious virus.”

The primary source of information regarding SARS-CoV-2 on library materials is the REALM Project: Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums .  The project is a collaboration among OCLC, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and Batelle. 

  • REALM Toolkit REALM has published a toolkit to assist libraries, archives, and museums.

Spurred by a  preliminary literature review in Summer 2020 that identifies the scarcity of peer reviewed publications on the topic SARS-CoV-2 on inanimate surfaces, the project has released their testing plan, whose goal is to test the viability of SARS-CoV-2 on a variety of surfaces.

A  second literature review assessed scientific findings from May 2020 to August 2020, summarizing what is currently known about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads, its lifespan on various surfaces, and how to effectively prevent viral transmission. 

A  third literature review summarized scientific findings from August to November 2020 and focused on environmental factors that can impact the spread of the virus. 

Phase 1 results released June 22, 2020 (PDF)  

Show that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not detectable on these common circulating library materials after three days (72 hours) in environmental conditions found in climate controlled buildings (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).

books library germs

Alt-Text:  Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 1, 3, and 4 days. The graph has lines for Hardback Book Cover, Plastic Protective Cover, Paperback Book Cover, DVD Case, and Plain Paper Pages, each with a different color. All lines decrease quickly, with no detectable virus on all tested materials after day 3.

Phase 2 results were released July 20, 2020 .  

In this phase, the following materials were tested: a) Braille paper pages, b) glossy book pages, c) magazine pages, d) children’s board books, and e) archival folders.  The sample materials were placed in closed books, which were then stacked to reproduce library storage conditions.  Stacks were stored at standard environmental conditions (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).  Results indicated that archival folder stacks showed no detectable SARS-CoV-2 virus after two days.  Low levels of the virus were present after three days for magazine paper, glossy paper, and Braille pages.  By Day 4, only the magazine paper showed observable virus.  Day 4 was the final timepoint tested.

books library germs

Alt text:   Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 1, 2, 3, and 4 days. The graph has lines for Children’s board book, archival folder, Braille page, glossy page, and magazine page, each with a different color. All lines decrease, with no detectable virus on all materials except magazine paper from day 4 onward.

Phase 3 results were released on August 18, 2020 .  

Materials tested in this phase were plastic-based, including a) Talking Book USB cassette/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), b) DVD/polycarbonate, c) storage bag/low-density polyethylene (LDPE), d) storage container/high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and e) plexiglass/acrylic.  Sample materials were tested in an unstacked configuration in standard environmental conditions (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).  After five days, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not detectable on the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or the polycarbonate.  However, the virus was still detected on the Talking Book USB cassette/ABS plastic, the plexiglass/acrylic, and the storage container/high-density polyethylene.  Day 5 was the final timepoint tested.  

books library germs

Alt text:   Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 3, 4, and 5 days. The graph has lines for Talking Book USB cassette, DVD, Storage Bag, Storage Container, and Plexiglass, each with a different color. All lines decrease, but the virus remains detectable on the Talking Book USB cassette, Storage Container, and Plexiglass after 5 days.

Phase 4 results were released on September 3, 2020 .  

In this phase, some of the materials from testing phase 1 were re-tested, but in a stacked configuration that reproduces common library book return and storage conditions.  Expanded polyethylene foam, often used in display or storage, was also tested.  The following materials were tested: a) hardback buckram book cover, b) coated paper softcover book cover, c) polyester protective cover, d) polypropylene DVD case, and e) polyethylene foam.  Stacks were stored at standard environmental conditions (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).  Results indicated that the virus was detectable on all five materials after six days of quarantine in a stacked configuration.  Compared to the results of test 1, which tested the hardcover book, softcover book, plastic book cover, and DVD case in an unstacked configuration and found that the virus dies within three days, test 4 shows that stacking materials prolongs the viability of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.  Day 6 was the final timepoint tested.

books library germs

Alt text:   Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 3, 4, and 6 days. The graph has lines for Hardcover Book Cover, Softcover Book Cover, Plastic Protective Cover, DVD Case, and Foam, each with a different color. All lines decrease, but the virus remains detectable on the Hardcover Book Cover at 6 days, the final timepoint tested.

Phase 5 results were released on October 14, 2020 (PDF) . 

Materials tested were textiles commonly found in libraries and museums, including a) 19th century bookbinding leather, b) synthetic polyvinyl chloride leather, c) polyolefin fabric, d) cotton fabric, and e) nylon webbing.  The samples were stored in standard environmental conditions (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).  Results indicated that both the leather book cover and synthetic leather showed detectable SARS-CoV-2 until Day 8.  No virus was present after one hour for the polyolefin and nylon textiles.   Due to experimental complications, it was necessary to exclude the cotton fabric from analysis.  Day 8 was the final timepoint tested.

books library germs

Alt text:   Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 days. The graph has lines for Leather Book Cover, Synthetic Leather, Polyolefin Fabric, and Nylon Webbing, each with a different color. The cotton textile was not analyzed due to experimental complications. All lines decrease, but the virus remains detectable on the Leather Book Cover and Synthetic Leather at 8 days, the final timepoint tested.

Phase 6 results were released on November 19, 2020 . 

In this phase, the following materials were tested: a) glass, b) marble, c) laminate with particle board backing, d) brass, and e) powder-coated steel.  The materials were stored in standard environmental conditions (22⩲2° Celsius/71.6⩲2° Fahrenheit and 40⩲10% Relative Humidity).  After two days, no virus was detectable on the brass and marble.  The SARS-Cov-2 virus was detectable on the glass, laminate, and powder-coated steel until the Day 6.  Day 8 was the final timepoint tested.  

books library germs

Alt text: Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 days.  The graph has lines for Glass, Marble, Laminate, Powder-Coated Steel, and Brass, each with a different color.  All lines decrease, and the virus was not detectable on the Brass and Marble after two days.  The virus remained detectable on the Glass, Laminate, and Powder-Coated Steel until the sixth day.  Day 8 was the final timepoint tested.  

Phases 7 and 8 results were released February 11, 2021 (PDF) . 

In this phase, the following materials were tested: a) buckram cloth, b) coated paper, c) polyester film, and d) polyester foam.  For test 7, the materials were kept in cooler temperatures (1-4° Celsius/34-36° Fahrenheit) and for test 8, warmer temperatures (28-29° Celsius/83-84° Fahrenheit) were used.  The Relative Humidity for tests 7 and 8 was kept at 40⩲10%, as it had been in tests 1-6. The tests show that the  SARS-Cov-2 virus was viable for longer periods on all materials when stored in the colder conditions, with virus detectable on the foam, coated paper, and polyester cover after ten days.  The virus was detectable on the buckram book cover after 8 days.  For all of the materials stored in the warm conditions, the virus was not detected after the third day.  Day 10 was the final timepoint tested.

books library germs

Alt text: Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 days when stored at warm and cold temperatures.  The graph has lines for Hardcover Cold in blue and Hardcover Warm in red.  The red line decreases rapidly, and the virus was not detectable on the hardcover buckram after 3 days.  The virus remained detectable on the hardcover buckram stored in cold temperatures until the 9th day.  Day 10 was the final timepoint tested.  

books library germs

Alt text: Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 days when stored at warm and cold temperatures.  The graph has lines for Softcover Cold in blue and Softcover Warm in red.  The red line decreases rapidly, and the virus was not detectable on the softcover coated paper after 3 days.  The virus remained detectable on the softcover coated paper stored in cold temperatures until the 10th day.  Day 10 was the final timepoint tested.  

books library germs

Alt text: Screenshot from REALM study website showing line graph of natural attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 at 0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 days when stored at warm and cold temperatures.  The graph has lines for Plastic Cover Cold in blue and Plastic Cover Warm in red.  The red line decreases rapidly, and the virus was not detectable on the plastic cover polyester after 3 days.  The virus remained detectable on the softcover coated paper stored in cold temperatures until the 10th day.  Day 10 was the final timepoint tested.  

books library germs

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High Touch High Tech

High Touch High Tech

Science Made FUN!

Library Books: Sharing Germs and Knowledge

books library germs

Living through the age of COVID-19 has magnified the focus on the spread and transmission of germs. Regular disinfection of public transportation surfaces, 6-foot line rules, and the rising support for a cashless society seem like a germaphobe’s dream, some even saying these precautions could holdover once the coronavirus outbreak ceases.  As we reduce the sharing of high touch materials like tools and equipment, what happens to institutions build on sharing? Our public libraries could soon be facing permanent retirement.

books library germs

Since their foundation, libraries have stood as a foundation of learning, record keeping, and professional development. Libraries are free educational resources to everyone, providing historical context and truth, connecting communities one book at a time. As library books are shared, a bond is created by newfound information and a mutual experience. As long as records have been kept, libraries have existed, adapting from clay tablets to today’s paper novel. Libraries are important centers for gathering and fellowship within our communities.

books library germs

The question of the sanitation of library books is almost as old as the Germ Theory, with an article titled “The Disinfection of Books” being published in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association in 1911. This article details concern that smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, trachoma, diphtheria, dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis could be transmitted through the sharing of library books. Experiments have shown that recently handled books can in fact contain microbes such as the herpes virus, streptococcus bacteria, tuberculosis, staphylococcus bacteria, various fungi, and many other germs. These experiments also concluded that books brought back to the library within a three-day window grew more bacteria colonies than books handled by more library visitors. If a book is on a library shelf untouched with no new germs added, the bacteria lying in the pages begin to die off.

books library germs

While library books are full of knowledge and microbes, these common germs are found in quantities that are unlikely to infect you. Germs in larger variety can be found at your desk, office microwave, kitchen sink and sponge, and makeup brush, yet few think twice about touching these objects. If you grab your cellphone or flip a light switch without doing a throughout disinfection, reading your favorite book at your public library is no challenge for your immune system. Have no fear in visiting your public library and expanding on your reading list!

Germs are all around us, being left on each and every surface we come in contact with! You can play High Touch High Tech’s Germ Game as a friendly reminder to wash your hands and regularly disinfect surfaces. https://sciencemadefun.net/downloads/germ_game.pdf

books library germs

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Library Books Were Once Blamed for Spreading Deadly Diseases

By jake rossen | aug 26, 2019.

izzy71/iStock via Getty Images

For many people, vising their local library and picking up a book knowing it’s gone through several other hands can be a source of amazement. But for a skittish public in the 1890s, there was a nagging fear that handling a borrowed book could infect them with smallpox, scarlet fever, or tuberculosis. The pleasure of owning a library card became an exercise in terror.

In a fantastic article recently posted on Smithsonian , writer Joseph Hayes chronicles an extended bout of hysteria related to lending libraries in the United States and abroad. With news accounts of a Nebraskan librarian’s death from tuberculosis in 1895 being attributed to her handling of books, the public grew concerned that volumes could be contaminated by people harboring infectious diseases. While it seems as though this concern should be valid for other things repeatedly handled by the public—like doorknobs, for example—library books were singled out for their seeming ability to trap germs in pages that could then spring out when the book was opened. People were also fretful that someone with a fatal illness could cough onto the paper, expectorating tiny bits of germ-harboring tissue.

Physicians did little to dampen the concern, proclaiming either no knowledge of whether books could transmit disease or plainly stating that it was possible. In the UK, the Public Health Act of 1875, which limited the sharing of contaminated items like bedding, was expanded in 1907 to include library books, with people known to carry disease prohibited from handling titles available to the general public.

While paranoia was largely to blame for this bizarre belief, the panic actually aided conservative observers who feared certain books were salacious enough to corrupt the moral fabric. That libraries were being ostracized and books sat on shelves unread played into their objectives, and they attempted to reinforce the idea books were potential contagions whenever possible.

Libraries began to experiment with methods for sterilizing books, including steam or formaldehyde solutions. It took years before the public panic subsided and no massive outbreaks of disease as a result of book borrowing materialized. Modern medicine has determined that, while book pages could conceivably harbor disease, the risk of infection from handling them is extremely low.

Today’s libraries still clean books. At the Boston Public Library, for example, books go through what amounts to a tiny car wash on a conveyor belt, though it’s not to sterilize them. It’s simply to remove dust from pages.

[h/t Smithsonian ]

Why You Should Always Put a Used Book in the Freezer Before Reading It

books library germs

  • 01 HOW TO CLEAN OLD BOOKS
  • 02 HOW TO DISINFECT OLD BOOKS
  • 03 HOW TO DISINFECT MOLDY BOOKS
  • 04 HOW TO GET RID OF INSECTS
  • 05 HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OLD BOOKS
  • James Fraser , James Fraser is the manager of The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Jason Tetro , microbiologist and author of The Germ Files

How to clean old books to get rid of dust, dirt, and grime

“To remove dust, dirt, or grime, my best advice is to use a paper towel,” says James Fraser, manager of The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Boston. Alternatively, you can opt to use a microfiber cloth to dust off books. This method should work when you want to clean old paperback and hardbound books.

1. Wipe down the whole book, cover to cover, being careful when you clean the book’s pages.

2. If there are stubborn smudges and stains on the cover of the book, wet the paper towel or microfiber cloth with a little water and revisit those bits. Bear in the mind that books—particularly old books—can be fragile. “Any attempt to fix past wrongs may end up damaging the book even more,” says Fraser.

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Optional: Handwritten inscriptions left by others often come part and parcel with buying used books. If they aren’t scribbled in permanent ink, an extremely soft eraser used with extra care can remove pencil marks or hand smudges.

Book Cleaning Materials

1. ecofirst, recycled paper towels.

EcoFirst Recycled Paper Towels

2. Casabella, Microfiber Cloth

Casabella Microfiber Cloth

3. Absorene, Book and Document Cleaner

Absorene Book and Document Cleaner

How to disinfect used books

A good thorough clean can make old books look new again, but if mold, mildew, or insects have taken up residence in your book, you’ll have to disinfect it. If not, you might want to disinfect a book for your own peace of mind.

The difference between cleaning and disinfecting books

Indeed, there’s a difference between cleaning and disinfection , as Karen Hoffman, RN , immediate past president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), told Well+Good . Cleaning removes dirt off surfaces while disinfecting actually kills germs. It’s also important to note that if you want to disinfect an old book—or any object, for that matter—you always have to start with a clean surface. “Disinfectants don’t work if there’s a visibly dirty surface,” says Hoffman.

The best ways to disinfect old books

When disinfecting old books, “you can probably get away with using disinfectant, like 70 percent rubbing alcohol,” says Jason Tetro , microbiologist and author of The Germ Files . If you don’t want to apply rubbing alcohol to book covers, you can use mild soap and water as an alternative. “A mild soap will kill the majority of microbes,” says Tetro. “If you want more oomph, you could use ultraviolet light,” he says, adding that “the sun is the best disinfectant.”

Another disinfectant according to Tetro? Time. “You can just let books sit because the majority of microbes can’t last without food and water for a long period of time,” he says. “If you just leave a book very, very, very dry and you leave it very, very, very dry for a week, you are reducing probably 99.9 percent of the problems.”

Make sure you are disinfecting your hands, too

Whether you’re disinfecting a book for a specific reason, or just because, Tetro says that the greatest risk that’s going to happen to you from a book isn’t the book itself, but indirect transfer to your hands.

“If you find yourself in a situation where you are unsure about the microbiological quality of a book, you always have to have a measure to be able to keep yourself safe,” he says. It can be as simple as using a hand sanitizer or washing your hands. “While there’s a great deal of possibilities for being able to make sure that your book is safe, there’s always the ability to make sure that you are safe.”

Disinfecting mildewed or moldy books

If mildew or mold has taken hold of a book, the process will likely be more involved. Books stored in dark, damp environments for extended periods of time are often susceptible to the issue.

Freeze the book

If you spot some telltale growth—like white, gray, or black spots that are flat or fuzzy—the first thing you might want to do is place it in a resealable plastic bag and freeze it for at least 24 hours. “Freezing the book is the best way to combat it,” says Fraser.

Disinfect the book with alcohol

Fraser also suggests removing mold or mildew with alcohol—a method that also come with the recommendation of Tetro. “A disinfectant will bring down the microbial load and quite possibly stem the growth,” says Tetro. “I would suggest a cloth dampened with 70% alcohol might be the best option as this is a decent disinfectant and quickly evaporates.”

Tetro adds that if you’re tackling mold or mildew on the page of a book as opposed to the cover, you’ll want to keep waxed paper underneath it to prevent the disinfectant from migrating to other pages.

Don’t forget to protect yourself

In any case, you might want to wear an N95 mask, gloves, and protective goggles during the removal process. Mold can cause many health effects that range from mild to severe, particularly for people who are asthmatic or allergic to mold. As an extra precaution, consider working outside while attempting to remove mold from your book. That way, you prevent spores from spreading in and around your home.

Keep the book in a dry place to prevent future mold growth

However, Fraser says mold is hard to get rid of after it makes its way into a book, which is to say, there’s no guarantee that it won’t come back. To prevent mold from returning, he recommends moving the book to a “dry place with lots of air circulation.” Tetro echoes this sentiment: “For protecting against future growth, UV rays and low humidity are best.”

How to get rid of insects from old books

Put the book in the freezer.

If insects have found their way into the pages of a book, you can also use the freezing method to get rid of them. “When you’re dealing with insects, then the cold is all that’s necessary to kill them,” says Tetro. “They can’t survive under a particular temperature.” Leaving a book in the freezer overnight should get the job done.

Whether you want to get rid of insects or inhibit the growth of mold or mildew, you want to try and avoid any humidity from getting into that book if you’re putting it into the freezer. “The minute that you get any of that humidity from the freezer, the book is going to wrinkle,” says Tetro. “It really has to be hermetically sealed.” For this reason, you want to place a book in a zip-top bag before placing it in the freezer.

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1. ziploc, gallon food storage bags.

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2. MedPride, Powder-Free Nitrile Exam Gloves (100-Pack)

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5. Dealmed, Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol 70% USP

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6. ProPlus, Dry Cleaning Sponge

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Keeping old or used books in pristine condition

Knowing how to clean or disinfect old books is one thing, but keeping it in pristine condition is a whole other matter. If you want to prolong the lifespan of a book, Fraser recommends storing it in a dry place, and just as importantly, away from the sun. “It’s remarkable how much the exterior of a book will fade if you keep it in direct sunlight over time,” he says. “I left the same books on display in the Grolier window for maybe six months, which gets lots of direct sunlight and the colors on the covers faded substantially.”

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Don’t worry too much about library book germs.

That’s what a post on Mental Floss points out , looking at the history of research into “library book grossness.” It includes mention of experiments in which guinea pigs were injected with a solution extracted from the pages of dirty library books, and promptly ended up dying of tuberculosis, strep infections, and other nasty diseases.

The bright side is, you’d effectively have to have a scientist extract the germs and inject them into you for there to be any actual risk of infection from an unsanitary library book. The Wall Street Journal notes that germs need a “critical mass” to infect people, and there just aren’t enough of them on the average book to do the trick. However, some libraries have had issues with bedbugs. A pesticide specialist recommends that if your library has had an infestation, you could carry your books home in a cloth bag and run them through the dryer for 30 minutes to kill any resident bugs. (But I can’t imagine that being tumbled around in a dryer for 30 minutes would be very good for the books, either!)

Meanwhile, many libraries in Japan have installed Bacteria Elimination Boxes , which kill germs on books via 45 seconds of ultraviolet light. It only kills the germs on the covers, but that’s where 99% of germs on books are located. Not all that surprising, given that’s where books are held. Meanwhile, people who don’t have access to such a device could probably do nearly as well just by wiping it down with some rubbing alcohol on a paper towel or cotton swab.

Those of us who read e-books might feel a little smug about the fact that electronic books can’t carry germs or bedbugs. But maybe we should think again. As David pointed out earlier this month, the smartphones people read e-books on can themselves be toilet-level dirty . Douglas Adams would probably be terribly amused that telephone sanitizers might actually come in handy now.

(Thanks to TeleRead’s former editor Dan Eldridge for calling my attention to this story!)

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COVID-19 is still a very real part of our daily lives and front of mind for young people. Here are four books a­ddressing ­viruses and germs that ­educators can share with students.

COVID-19 is still a very real part of our daily lives and front of mind for young people. Many of us have even learned creative ways to ensure that we’ve washed our hands for 20 seconds (the ABCs, Lady Macbeth’s speech, Pride & Prejudice ’s Darcy’s proposal). Here are four books a­ddressing ­viruses and germs that ­educators can share with students.

books library germs

Cross, Paul Ian. How to Vanquish a Virus: The Weird World of Viruses Explained! illus. by Steve Brown. 128p. Welbeck. Jul. 2021. Tr $9.95. ISBN 9781783127313. Gr 4-8 –An introduction to the world of viruses that takes a decidedly upbeat approach to the current global pandemic. Cross covers a lot of territory about the world of viruses in only eight chapters. Beginning with a general background on viruses and how they function, the focus then shifts to the specifics of various coronaviruses: MERS, SARS, the common cold, and the culprit of our current pandemic, COVID-19. Readers are warned about the dangers of misinformation and how to determine if scientific information is from reputable sources. Chapters then turn to more basic human biology, such as a description of cells, the role of DNA and RNA, and an explanation of how our immune system works to keep harmful viruses at bay. A brief history of vaccine science is presented, as well as a discussion of the vital role that scientists, researchers, and participants (those who volunteered for vaccine trials) played in the successful production of the current vaccines in use. Each chapter ends with a suggested activity, such as creating a face covering or inventing an imaginary new medicine. The importance of attending to one’s mental health is stressed throughout. Well-placed and engaging illustrations and sidebars break up the text. VERDICT While it doesn’t shy away from naming the dangers of viruses, in particular COVID-19, this work focuses on reassuring young readers that progress is being made in the efforts to combat the virus. A useful addition for middle school libraries. –Ragan O’Malley, Saint Ann’s Sch., Brooklyn

Goldsmith, Connie. Understanding Coronaviruses: SARS, MERS, and the COVID-19 Pandemic . 144p. Twenty-First Century. Sept. 2021. Tr $37.32. ISBN 9781728428888. Gr 7 Up –Beginning with Dr. Li Wenliang of Wuhan Central Hospital sounding the alarm about a potentially deadly new virus on December of 2019, Goldsmith, a registered nurse, takes readers on a journey through the sequence of events that encompass the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there is controversy about the origins of the virus, Goldsmith explains that it likely originated in a market in Wuhan, China, by jumping from an animal host to a human host. Goldsmith provides readers with background information on bacteria and viruses, including an overview of deadly epidemics and pandemics throughout history. Special attention is given to the difference between various coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 (which causes the disease COVID-19). The author then explores the reality of COVID-19 in the United States. Issues such as political partisanship in the response to science recommendations and preventative measures are addressed, as well as the disproportionate impact it has had on communities of color and the spike in anti-Asian hate incidents. Later chapters cover the efforts of healthcare workers and the CDC in caring for patients and preventing illness, as well as the real roadblocks that misinformation caused in the attempts to effectively combat the virus. The enormous efforts to create vaccines are described, as well as the successes and shortcomings of the vaccine distribution rollout. With clear language and an organized structure, Goldsmith places the pandemic in context. Extensive source notes and a selected bibliography are included. VERDICT If your library needs a well-researched, thorough summary of the COVID-19 pandemic for middle and high school student research projects and papers, this is a solid choice. –Ragan O’Malley, Saint Ann’s Sch., Brooklyn

Hopkinson, Deborah. The Deadliest ­Diseases Then and Now . 224p.(The Deadliest: Bk. 1). Scholastic Focus. Oct. 2021. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9781338360202; pap. $7.99. ISBN 9781338360226. Gr 6-9 –The first in a new series has a timely topic. The bulk of the volume focuses on the bubonic plague from the 14th century to the 1910s, alternating historical and science chapters, and frequently debunking established theories. The author’s chummy use of the first person “we” lets readers learn alongside her as she reveals information gleaned from experts, transforming her writing into the style of one of the Middle Ages plague chroniclers she frequently quotes. Additional chapters on the 1918 influenza and COVID-19 pandemics add context to understanding how far medicine has come in handling contagious diseases. Informative captioned photographs alternate with evocative pen-and-ink illustrations. Bold vocabulary words are explained contextually as well as defined in the corresponding glossary. Supplemental materials include two fun quizzes and a call to be “a Twenty-First Century Chronicler” of COVID-19, as well as further reading and a selected bibliography. Source notes, which the author describes as analogous to “evidence that a detective collects to make a case,” and a comprehensive index also support researchers. VERDICT Good for budding middle school epidemiologists and history buffs who can’t resist a book about diseases. –Courtney Lewis, St. Catherine’s Sch., Richmond, VA

Kay, Edward. Germy Science: The Sick Truth About Getting Sick (and Staying Healthy) . illus. by Mike Shiell. 48p. (Gross Science). Kids Can. Oct. 2021. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9781525304125. Gr 4-8 –Germs are everywhere, explains Kay in this accessible and comprehensive exploration of the world of germs. After describing how small germs are and how many live on our bodies, Kay explains that the word germ is a general term that encompasses four types of organisms (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and viruses). Kay then focuses on the discovery of germs and their connection to illness. The author explains how our immune systems protect our bodies from harmful germs and shares the additional steps we can take to protect ourselves. Readers are introduced to the history of vaccination and inoculation (dating as far back as 2,000 years with the Chinese efforts to prevent smallpox). “Germs that Changed History” is the title of one particularly fascinating chapter that focuses on various pandemics (including COVID-19) and plagues that have had a profound impact on the course of history. The final chapter explores the future of germ research and offers possibilities of what is to come, such as studying industrial uses for germs, like using bacteria to make fuel cells or new types of plastics. The accompanying illustrations are clever, colorful, and humorously match the spirited tone of the text. VERDICT A great combination of scientific information, coupled with a bit of historical epidemiology, resulting in a highly entertaining and informative introduction to germs. Recommended for middle school libraries. –Ragan O’Malley, Saint Ann’s Sch., Brooklyn

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Identification of Pathogenic Bacteria from Public Libraries via Proteomics Analysis

Ryan hyunjae jung.

1 Carnegie Vanguard High School, Houston, TX 77019, USA; [email protected]

2 Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA; moc.liamg@eaznimeht

Bhoomi Bhatt

3 Verna & Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; [email protected]

Jong Min Choi

4 Advanced Technology Core, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA

Jung H. Roh

5 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA

Associated Data

Hazardous organisms may thrive on surfaces that are often exposed to human contact, including children’s library books. In this study, swab samples were taken from 42 children’s books collected from four public libraries in Texas and California. Samples were then cultivated in brain–heart infusion (BHI) medium and then in Luria broth (LB) medium containing either ampicillin or kanamycin. All 42 samples (100%) were positive for bacterial growth in normal BHI medium. Furthermore, 35 samples (83.3%) and 20 samples (47.6%) in total were positive in LB medium containing ampicillin or kanamycin, respectively. Bacterial populations were then identified in samples using an Orbitrap Fusion™ Tribrid ™ mass spectrometer, a state-of-the-art proteomic analysis tool. Identified bacterial species grown in ampicillin included Bacillus , Acinetobacter , Pseudomonas , Staphylococcus , Enterobacter , Klebsiella , Serratia , Streptococcus , Escherichia , Salmonella , and Enterococcus . In contrast, identified bacteria grown in kanamycin included Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus , and Bacillus . The presences of pathogenic bacteria species were also confirmed. The results of this study warrant follow up studies to assess the potential health risks of identified pathogens. This study demonstrates the utility of proteomics in identifying environmental pathogenic bacteria for specific public health risk evaluations.

1. Introduction

Children’s library books may serve as a vector of contagious organisms as they are circulated throughout communities without established sterilization procedures. In 1985, concern about disease transmission through libraries were raised by McClary in his article “Beware the Deadly Books” [ 1 ]. In 1994, Brook et al. published that Staphylococcus epidermidis was recovered from four out of 15 public library books [ 2 ]. Recently, Rafiei et al. demonstrated that 20.8% of returned books from the Al-Zahra Hospital Library and the Library of Sciences Faculty of Isfahan University were culture-positive [ 3 ]. Identified bacteria included Enterobacteriacease and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus . Gamlale et al. reported that, while airborne fungi are found throughout the city of São Paulo, Brazil, they are present in higher concentrations in libraries, subsequently resulting in asthmatic or rhinitis symptoms in 49% of 314 interviewed librarians in a follow up study [ 4 ]. Currently, in the United States there are two reports demonstrating the presence of bacteria in library books [ 5 , 6 ]. However, these reports originate from university course assignments or high school science competitions; thus, full description of methods and results are not available as scientific literature. In addition, the samples of these reports consist of university library books and chapter books, rather than children’s books. Identification of organisms in children’s books in the United States has not been illustrated to our knowledge. Furthermore, organisms that children carry can vary from those of adults [ 7 ].

Identification of bacteria species using mass spectrometry-based proteomics has over 40 years of history. In 1970, pyrolysis–gas chromatography mass spectrometry was used to identify two microorganisms, Micrococcus luteus and Bacillus subtilis var. niger [ 8 ]. Since then, over 200 papers have been published per year for bacteria identification using the mass spectrometer. Advances in mass spectrometry techniques and instrument development have resulted in improved detection of bacteria species; however, most studies utilize matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization—time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF) [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Recently, in 2013 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two matrix-assisted laser desorption-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS)-based platforms for bacteria identification [ 20 ]. Though MALDI-TOF-MS-based identification is a well-established technique, it can only identify bacteria at the genus level, not at the species or subspecies level [ 20 ]. Liquid Chromatography-Electrospray Ionization-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS ) is a recently developed mass spectrometry system with higher sensitivity and reliability compared to MALDI-TOF, making LC-ESI-MS/MS a superior platform for protein identification. The high sensitivity of LC-ESI-MS/MS is achieved through: (1) effective peptide concentration (50–200 fold before MS detection by HPLC column), (2) independent sequencing of peptides, and (3) utilization of between 0.01% and 0.1% of the sample loaded on a MALDI plate during MALDI-based MS analysis, and utilization of almost all the sample during the electrospray process in LC-MS/MS. However, these advanced techniques have not been used to evaluate the pathogenic potential of library books.

In this paper we used a state-of-the-art mass spectrometry instrument, the Thermo™ Fusion™ Tribrid™ Orbitrap mass spectrometer (San Jose, CA, USA), to identify bacteria at the species level. This study aims to identify organisms in children’s books through mass spectrometry and proteomic analysis using an LC-ESI-MS/MS instrument.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. sample collection.

Ten books from each of two public libraries in Houston, Texas, and 11 books from each of two public libraries (a public library in the Central Valley and a public library in the East Bay) in Northern California were swabbed in the winter of 2018. The front and back cover and top and sides of each book were swabbed. Samples were collected using cotton fiber-tipped sterile swabs (Fisher, Cat. No. 14-959-96B). Immediately prior to sample collection, swabs were dipped into the sterile brain–heart infusion (BHI) medium, to ensure bacterial recovery from environmental surfaces [ 21 ]. After the book surfaces were sampled, the swab was immediately placed into a 13 mL bacterial culture tube (Sarstedt, 62.515.006), and returned to the laboratory. Separate clean sterile swabs were only dipped into the sterile BHI and placed in 13 mL of bacterial culture before and after sample collection steps per each library for negative control.

2.2. Bacterial Cultures, Collection of Bacteria

Cultivation of each sample began by adding 5 mL of BHI medium to the culture tube containing swabs. The tubes were then incubated for 12 h in a 37 °C shake incubator at a speed of 1500 rpm. After initial cultivation, 10 μL of the bacteria culture were inoculated into 5 mL of Luria broth (LB) medium containing 100 μg/mL of ampicillin or 100 μg/mL of kanamycin to select for bacteria grown in ampicillin- or kanamycin-containing medium. After 12 h of shaking incubation the bacteria were pelleted by 2000× g spin and PBS-washed.

2.3. Proteomics Analysis of Bacteria

The harvested bacteria grown in ampicillin or kanamycin-containing medium were digested and analyzed on LC-ESI-MS/MS based on a previous publication [ 22 ]. Briefly, PBS-washed bacteria were suspended with 100 μL of lysis buffer (50 mM ammonium bicarbonate, 1 mM CaCl 2 ) and snap-frozen with liquid nitrogen. Then the bacteria were lysed by three cycles of 95 °C boiling and LiN 2 snap freezing. The protein amount was measured by the Bradford method and 10 μg of total protein were digested with trypsin overnight. The digested peptides were vacuum-dried then dissolved in 30 μL of 5% methanol containing 0.1% formic acid, and one-fifth of the reconstituted samples was subjected to a nLC-1000 (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) coupled to an Orbitrap Fusion™ Tribrid ™ mass spectrometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific). An in-house trap column (2 cm × 100 μm, Reprosil-Pur Basic C18, 3 μm) was used for enriching peptides. Then, the trap column was switched in-line with an in-house 5 cm × 150 μm capillary column packed with 1.9 um Reprosil-Pur Basic C18 beads. Peptides were separated with a 75-min discontinuous gradient of 4-24% acetonitrile, 0.1% formic acid, at a flow rate of 800 nL/min, then electro-sprayed into a mass spectrometer. The instrument was operated using Xcalibur software ver 4.0 (Thermo Fisher Scientific) in data-dependent mode, acquiring fragmentation spectra of the top 50 strongest ions. Parent MS spectrum was acquired in the Orbitrap with a full MS range of 300–1400 m/z at a resolution of 120,000. HCD fragmented MS/MS spectrum was acquired in an ion-trap in rapid scan mode

2.4. Data Analysis with Commercial and In-House Computer Software

Search of the obtained MS/MS spectrum against a target-decoy bacterial ribosome database (48,718 protein sequence entry) was done in the Proteome Discoverer 1.4 interface (ThermoFisher, San Jose, CA, USA) with the Mascot algorithm (Mascot 2.4, Matrix Science, Boston, MA, USA). Oxidation of methionine and protein n-terminal acetylation was allowed as variable modifications. Mass tolerance was 20 ppm for the precursor and 0.5 Dalton for fragment ions. A maximum of two missed cleavages of trypsin digestion was allowed. Assigned peptides were filtered with 1% false discovery rate (FDR). Number of peptide spectrum match (PSM) was used for identification of existing bacteria species.

A Python script was written for wrangling bacterial protein FASTA. A species dependent unique peptide list was created for lysosomal protein to further pinpoint-out identification of specific species level of bacteria strain identification. Briefly, the python script is explained as follows. The SeqIO module available through biopython package was used to read the protein FASTA file. Unique proteins were selected by counting the number of protein accessions where a protein should have only one identifier. Proteins were cleaved to peptide sequence for trypsin using parser module from pyteomics package [ 23 ]. Peptides were then mapped to their corresponding protein accession. A list of unique peptides was created where the peptide mapped to only one protein accession. Script available at https://github.com/bbhatt1789/library-germs.git .

2.5. Data Availability

The mass spectrometry data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium ( http:// proteomecentral.proteomexchange.org ) via the MASSIVE repository (MSV MSV000083354) with the dataset identifier PXD012473.

3.1. Growth of Bactria in Antibiotic Medium

In this study, 42 samples were analyzed, with 20 samples referring to Houston libraries (Houston 1 and Houston 2), and 22 samples referring to a public library in the Central Valley (CV) and a public library in the East Bay (EB) in Northern California. Out of 42 samples, all 42 samples were positive in terms of bacterial growth in normal BHI medium ( Figure 1 c). BHI medium-grown bacterial culture was inoculated into either ampicillin- ( Figure 1 d) or kanamycin ( Figure 1 e)-containing LB medium to select antibiotic-resistant bacteria grown in ampicillin or kanamycin-containing medium. After 12 h of incubation in a 37 °C shaking incubator, 33 samples (79%) and 23 samples (55%) were positive in terms of bacterial growth in ampicillin- or kanamycin-containing LB medium, respectively. Culture results in terms of growth of bacteria and libraries identification for samples are shown in Figure 1 a. Overall, the occurrence of bacteria grown in ampicillin-containing medium is much higher than the occurrence of bacteria grown in kanamycin-containing medium.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is ijerph-16-00912-g001.jpg

( a ) summary number of sample origin location, numbers, and sample growth in each antibiotic-containing medium. ( b ) Procedure for antibiotic-resistant bacteria selection. ( c ) Example of culture of collected samples in normal brain–heart infusion (BHI) medium. Two negative controls show no bacteria growth in the first and last position. ( d ) Example of culture BHI growth of bacteria in ampicillin Luria broth (LB) medium. ( e ) Example of culture BHI growth of bacteria in kanamycin LB medium.

3.2. Identified Bacteria Grown in Ampicillin or Kanamycin-Containing Medium

Bacteria grown in ampicillin or kanamycin-containing medium was digested in trypsin and analyzed on LC-ESI-MS/MS as shown in Figure 2 a. Acquired MS raw files were searched against bacteria ribosomal FASTA protein database extracted from the NCBI non-redundant RefSeq proteins database (NCBInr) using all known bacteria taxa and ribosome as key words. Because the entire bacteria protein database size was two-thirds of the NCBInr RefSeq database (entry 552,817,090), calculating the raw MS file against it was impractical. Over 12 h would be required to calculate one MS file using the entire bacteria protein database. As a result, we decided to create a far smaller protein database to make data analysis time manageable. Ribosomal proteins are good candidates for such an approach as they are essential proteins regardless of taxa. Although most ribosomal proteins are highly conserved within bacteria, some of these proteins are subject to variations depending on bacteria species so it was proven as a useful tool for the classification of bacterial isolates to the sub-species or strain level [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. The bacteria ribosome protein database containing 48,718 proteins sequence was used reducing the average calculation time for one MS file to 45 min.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is ijerph-16-00912-g002.jpg

( a ) Schematic illustration of workflow for identification of bacteria using LC-MS/MS. ( b ) Occurrence of bacteria in genus level from each library depends on different antibiotic medium.

Fifteen bacterial genera were discovered from ampicillin-containing culture medium and four bacterial genera were identified from kanamycin-containing culture medium ( Figure 2 b). The Bacillus and Staphylococcus genera were the most common genera from ampicillin- and kanamycin-containing media, respectively. The full list of bacteria grown is summarized in Table S1 . The identified protein and peptide list for bacteria from ampicillin medium ( Table S2 ) and kanamycin medium ( Table S3 ) is also summarized.

3.3. Identified of Bacteria at Species Level

We further investigated the recovered peptides from bacteria grown in ampicillin or kanamycin treated media samples to identify bacteria at the species and subspecies level. Determining bacteria at the genus level based on peptides implies some uncertainty since a peptide may be from different genera and species. Therefore, detection of unique peptides of species-specific ribosomal proteins is a promising task for an unambiguous identification of bacteria at the species level. We developed a Python based script that offers the possibility of a highly efficient and simple detection of such unique peptides. The species-specific unique peptide list was generated by the Python script and compared to the recovered peptide list. Any recovered peptide matched to a unique peptide from the Python script indicates the existence of a bacteria species in the sample. Figure 3 a shows the work flow of the species-specific peptide identification steps. As shown in Figure 3 b, 26 and eight types of bacteria were identified at the species or sub-species level from ampicillin- and kanamycin-containing medium, respectively. The detailed identified bacteria species-specific unique peptide is listed in Table S4 . Streptococcus pneumoniae was found to be the most common bacteria from ampicillin-containing medium. A few Bacillus species, including B. cereus and B. subtilis species, were also found as major bacteria ( Figure 3 b). In kanamycin-containing medium samples, Staphylococcus haemolyticus appeared to be most common species, followed by Enterococcus asini , as well as a few other Staphylococcus species such as S. lentus , S. warneri , and S. xylosus .

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is ijerph-16-00912-g003.jpg

( a ) Schematic illustration of workflow for identification of bacteria in species or subspecies level using unique peptide identification method. ( b ) Summary of confirmed bacteria species.

4. Discussion

Microorganisms exist in every environment where people are active and are generally more beneficial than harmful to humans. The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of harmful bacteria in children’s books from public libraries by mass spectrometry analysis. Two antibiotics, kanamycin, which mainly works against Gram (-) bacteria, and ampicillin, selective against Gram (+) bacteria, were used to enrich each antibiotic-resistant bacteria from the expected huge numbers of antibiotic-sensitive bacteria on the books. The bacteria grown in kanamycin-containing medium are all Gram (+) bacteria ( Figure 2 b and Figure 3 b).

S. haemolyticus is the second most clinically isolated opportunistic pathogen ( S. epidermidis is the first) that can causes meningitis, skin or soft tissue infections, prosthetic joint infections, or bacteremia [ 29 ], and has the highest level of antimicrobial resistance [ 30 ]. S. aureus is one of the leading pathogens for nosocomial infections showing multi-drug resistance (MDR) [ 31 , 32 ]. All these strains are associated with the human skin, gastrointestinal tract and urogenital tract [ 33 , 34 ].

Both Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria are identified in ampicillin containing medium. Gram positive bacteria S. pneumoniae was another commonly identified species in this study. S. pneumoniae is particularly dangerous for young children, older adults, and persons with underlying comorbidities [ 35 , 36 ]. Gram (-) bacteria A. baumannii is known to be one of the most severe MDR pathogens [ 37 ]. It often causes problems in immunocompromised individuals, particularly those who have experienced a prolonged (over 90 days) hospital stay [ 38 ]. It has been known to spread through the skin as well as the respiratory and oropharyngeal secretions of infected individuals [ 39 ]. Because it has an exceptional ability to develop resistance to all currently available antibiotics, it has been designated as a “red-alert” human pathogen [ 40 ]. S. aureus and A. baumannii are members of ESKAPE (acronym of Enterococcus faecium , S. aureus , Klebsiella pneumoniae , A. baumannii , P. aeruginosa , and Enterobacter ), which are pathogens commonly associated with MDR [ 41 ]. Bacillus species are present ubiquitously in nature and are non-pathogenic except two strains: Bacillus anthracis which causes anthrax [ 42 ], and B. cereus which causes food poisoning [ 43 ]. Most Pseudomonas sp. are naturally resistant to β-lactam antibiotics such as ampicillin [ 44 ]; therefore, many Pseudomonas species are identified in this study, although the well-known opportunistic human pathogen P. aeruginosa species was not identified.

Although some differences are identified depending on the library and area (Texas vs. California), more samples are required to claim any significant differences of the presence of pathogenic bacteria ( Figure 2 b and Figure 3 b).

In addition to the pathogenic bacteria identified in this study, other unidentified pathogenic bacteria could be present in the same sample because pathogenic bacteria were identified on the basis of resistance to ampicillin and kanamycin ( Supplemental Table S1 ).

Species of Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Enterobacteriaceae , and Pseudomonas are the most common bacteria identified in the hospital environment [ 3 ]. All of these species are also identified in children’s books in this study, suggesting that public library books could be responsible for bacterial transmission among children. Our results emphasize the importance of hand sanitizing after reading a book in the library and periodic sterilization of library books.

In this work we applied LC-ESI-MS/MS to detect bacteria at the species level. The advantages of deeper peptide coverage in LC-ESI-MS/MS compared to previously established MALDI-TOF are well addressed in numerous global proteome profiling studies [ 45 , 46 ]. Despite advantages in cost effectiveness and shorter turnaround time, the MALDI-TOF method is only able to detect abundant proteins and identify bacteria down to genus level [ 20 ]. For example, Balazova et al. could only identify mycobacterium at the genus level from their study testing the influence of culture conditions using a mixed culture of two known mycobacterium species [ 47 ]. Comparatively, we can detect 10,000 peptides within 1 hour of MS instrument time with 10 7 order of magnitude for protein coverage with our current LC-ESI-MS/MS-based method [ 22 ].

5. Conclusions

This study describes a simple and rapid method for the direct identification of bacteria from environmental media, which has the potential to discover and identify bacteria from various samples. This technique can be applied to the species or sub-species level of bacteria identification directly from clinical settings such as blood culture. Compared to conventional MALDI-TOF based detection methods, the deeper coverage of the bacterial peptides of this method enables identification of bacteria at the species or sub-species level.

Supplementary Materials

The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/6/912/s1 , Table S1. List of bacteria from each book samples grown in ampicillin or kanamycin medium. Table S2. Protein and peptide list detected from bacteria grown in ampicillin medium. Table S3. Protein and peptide list detected from bacteria grown in kanamycin medium. Table S4. Bacteria species-specific unique peptide list.

Author Contributions

R.H.J. and M.K. contributed to all aspects of this work; B.B. provide unique peptide search tool for data analysis; J.M.C. supervised the MS analysis of sample, the MS data analysis, and manuscript writing; J.H.R. provided the project idea, was involved in manuscript writing, and supervised this work.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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☘️ St. Patrick's Day Activities: Books, art ideas, experiments, and more!

Top 10 Books for Teaching Kids About Germs

Add these titles to your classroom library!

5 picture books about germs on a blue background

As you work to get kids to practice healthy habits at school, may we suggest these books? They’re a great way to teach kids everything from what germs are to how they were discovered to how they spread (not to mention what kids themselves can do to help prevent the spread of germs). Check out our list of best kids’ books about germs:

1. Do Not Lick This Book by Idan Ben-Barak

Cover of Do Not Lick This Book

This little gem was penned by a microbiologist! Follow Min the microbe into the microscopic world found on everyday objects (and inside your body) in this interactive book. The zoomed-in photos of the surface of your teeth and the fabric of a shirt are seriously cool.

2. Sick Simon by Dan Krall

Cover of Sick Simon

Simon sneezes everywhere, coughs on everyone, and touches everything. But he’s about to learn that having a cold isn’t as fun as he thought. This book presents a nice list of dos (and definitely don’ts) during cold and flu season and is even more relevant in today’s world!

3. Cutie Sue Fights the Germs by Kate Melton

Cover of Cutie Sue Fights the Germs

Cutie Sue has taken on being afraid of the dark and the importance of exercise. Now she’s back with the basics of personal hygiene and ways to stay healthy. When Cutie Sue and her brother get sick, their mom takes them to the doctor, who imparts important advice. The two kids are determined!

We will win the fight! Our germs will not spread if we do these things right.

We’ll sneeze into tissues and throw them away, And clean all our toys with some good cleaning spray.

4. A Germ’s Journey (Follow It!) by Thom Rooke, M.D.

Cover of A Germ's Journey

From where a germ comes from to where it’s off to next, we love this book for explaining how a germ travels from one host to another. A great primer on the immune system written for kids by a real doctor.

5. Wash Your Hands, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony

Cover of Wash Your Hands, Mr. Panda

We’re suckers for Mr. Panda, whether he’s teaching us manners or showing us how to rub-a-dub-dub. And the “sneeze catching” is a bonus.

6. Germs vs. Soap (Hilarious Hygiene Battle) by Didi Dragon

Cover of Germs vs. Soap

Don’t miss this hilarious book about the secret world of germs. They’re out to steal everyone’s “energy cupcakes,” but not if Soap has anything to do with it. Grab this one to support your handwashing lessons !

7. The Bacteria Book: The Big World of Really Tiny Microbes by Steve Mould

Cover of The Bacteria Book

With in-depth and full-color diagrams, this fact-filled science book is a great choice for slightly older readers. Definitely check out the close-up of a bacteria cell. Did you know bacteria with tails (bacteria can have tails?!) can swim 100 times their own length in one second? Take that, Michael Phelps!

9. Louis Pasteur (Genius Series) by Jane Kent

Cover of Louis Pasteur

Check out this cool autobiography about the visionary who helped advance the field of microbiology and is best known for developing the very first vaccine as well as the process of pasteurization.

9. All in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World by Lori Alexander

For another great historical option, try this award-winning book about the first scientist to observe the microbial life in and around us. This one’s a chapter book, but it features beautiful full-color art.

10. Giant Germ (The Magic School Bus Chapter Book) by Joanna Cole

Cover of Giant Germ

Our list wouldn’t be complete without a little Ms. Frizzle action. On this particular field trip, a class picnic in the park turns into an exploration of the miniature world of microbes. A great chapter book for your independent readers.

Top 10 Books for Teaching Kids about Germs

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A secret shelf of banned books thrives in a Texas school, under the nose of censors

Neda Ulaby - Square

A high school teacher in Houston has a library in her classroom of books she's not supposed to have, per state legislation. Students say she's helping them survive. ( Story aired on ATC on 1/29/24 .)

A secret shelf of banned books thrives in a Texas school, under the nose of censors

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Efforts to ban books have sparked a countermovement to find new ways to keep those books in circulation. In Texas, where hundreds of school book bans have been reported in recent years, some teachers and students have been building underground libraries. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Three teenagers are giggling at a coffee shop in Texas about what it takes to get their hands on books.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: Well, these are special books, so...

ULABY: We're in the far, far suburbs of Houston at a coffee shop so nondescript it looks like an ugly Starbucks knockoff. These three 17-year-old seniors brought me here to talk about a secret bookshelf in their teacher's classroom.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: It's really low-key, very undercover.

ULABY: How undercover?

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: She tells, like, a select few of students who she feels might need a book to get them into reading.

ULABY: These students have a lot in common besides attending the same public school.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: We're all minorities.

ULABY: And they're all queer. The secret bookshelf, they say, is the one place where they can easily find books that give them characters they can immediately relate to.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #4: Just to see, like, Latinos, LGBTQ - that's not something, like, you really see in our community, or it's not very well represented at all.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: Well, I am a young, Black lesbian, and I don't meet people like myself in my day-to-day life, either. So reading these characters in these books - it really gives me hope.

ULABY: You will not hear the names of these students. NPR has confirmed their identities, but they worry about the consequences of going public with their secret classroom bookshelf.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #4: We don't want to jeopardize our teacher in any way - or the bookshelf or the district or the school.

ULABY: Or themselves. Sharing such books in a Texas public school has felt dangerous for the past few years. These students do not want to draw the ire of antagonistic activists or put their teacher at risk. She is a longtime public school employee, a Texas native. And like her state, her secret bookshelf is enormous.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: At this point, I may have about maybe 600 books.

ULABY: They spill from two big bookshelves in her classroom into a bunch of plastic crates.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: I'll never have enough bookshelves (laughter).

ULABY: This teacher started her secret library a couple of years ago, after a Texas lawmaker named Matt Krause sent public schools a list of 850 books he wanted banned because he felt they would make students uncomfortable about race and sex. That made this teacher furious.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: The books that make you uncomfortable are the books that make you think, and isn't that what school is supposed to do? It's supposed to make you think.

ULABY: So she swung into action. First, she called friends.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: I was like, y'all, I have this project. I want his impact to be that it's actually expanding kids' access to people that are different from them.

ULABY: Then she talked to her students. She gave one of them a job. Here's that student remembering the assignment.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Can you go through the list? Can you see, like, what books you'd recommend for us to add to the library? And then she gave me her card to buy them.

ULABY: Wait a minute, she literally was like, here are the books we're not supposed to have; go get them?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. It was a lot of gay books, I remember that.

ULABY: This student has recently graduated. In high school, he came out as a transgender man to his parents.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I wouldn't call them supportive, so I had to do a lot of sneaking around.

ULABY: Including sneaking books featuring romances between queer characters. Some on the bookshelf are about contemporary high school students now. Some, says the teacher, are queer classics.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: Yes, I throw James Baldwin at them whenever I can. "Giovanni's Room" is really popular. That book is so wonderful. It's about travel and his identity and confusion. It's so wonderful.

ULABY: I reached out to former Texas lawmaker Matt Krause for comment repeatedly and got no response. He's currently running for county commissioner in Fort Worth. Here are some students talking about the books he's been trying to ban they've read from the secret bookshelf.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: There was "1984" by George Orwell. I love that book. I love dystopian novels. "My Heart Underwater" by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo - that was banned strongly because of the LGBTQ main character.

ULABY: And here's another student.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: Some of the books that I've read are books like "Hood Feminism," "Poet X," "Gabi, A Girl In Pieces" - like, books that have really helped me come to sense with feminism. How I grew up, I just see a lot of - like, especially in my community, a lot of women being talked down upon. And those books - it was really nice to read and be educated on.

ULABY: To be clear, this public school with the secret bookshelf in Texas, it's not in a fancy part of town. Many students there do not have parents who can drop everything to get their kids books about being queer. Here's the teacher.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: Oh, I have taught kids whose parents have never set foot in a classroom. They are from small towns in other countries, and their parents were farmers. I've had kids whose names were not spelled correctly because their parents were illiterate. You know, a lot of the kids have parents that did not go to college. A high amount of kids here are on free and reduced lunch.

ULABY: A spokesperson for the school district where this teacher works said they prefer not to comment on the issue. The transgender student worries about how much worse it's getting in Texas for teachers who want to help students like him.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Because of the way the laws are going for trans people especially, it could become illegal to the point where it could be assumed that she's grooming kids. And that would be terrible because that's not what she's doing at all.

ULABY: A Texas teacher was fired last year for assigning a book to her students. It was a graphic novel about Anne Frank that showed Anne having a romantic daydream about another girl. There are other documented cases in Texas of teachers leaving jobs because of pressure over challenged books. One local Freedom to Read activist described the atmosphere as chilling. That's what makes the underground bookshelf started by this teacher remarkable, says Kasey Meehan of the free speech advocacy group PEN America.

KASEY MEEHAN: Yes. That is, in fact, incredible, and it's really courageous.

ULABY: It's not wrong for students to be worried, Meehan says, given how much things have escalated in Texas in recent years.

MEEHAN: Parents are taking books from schools and bringing them to police and sheriff's offices and accusing librarians and educators of providing sexually explicit material to students.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: It does make me nervous. It does make me nervous. I mean, this is absolutely silly that I'm not free to talk about books without giving my name and worrying about repercussions because history has taught us this lesson over and over again.

ULABY: The teacher who runs the secret bookshelf of banned books.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: You know, I intend for this library to just keep growing.

ULABY: And at some point, she hopes it will no longer have to be a secret.

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: I do believe that book banning is going to go away. I think it's kind of the last grasp of people trying to maintain control because they know it's slipping. That's what I tell myself anyway.

ULABY: Late last year, the Texas State Board of Education passed a policy prohibiting what it calls, quote, "sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable" books in public schools. Critics say that language is dangerously vague. And although parts of that policy were just blocked by federal court, it was not overturned, and that language was left untouched.

Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

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West Virginia bill allowing librarians to be prosecuted over 'obscene' books moves forward

The bill would erase criminal liability protections for public libraries, museums and schools that display 'obscene matter to a minor,' when the child is not accompanied by a parent or guardian.

books library germs

A West Virginia bill is moving forward that would allow librarians and teachers to be criminally liable if minors obtain books with "obscene material."

HB 4654 passed in the West Virginia House of Delegates last week and has been introduced to the Senate. The bill would erase criminal liability protections for public libraries, museums and schools that display "obscene matter to a minor," when the child is not accompanied by a parent or guardian.

If a museum employee, librarian or school staff violates the restrictions, they could be charged with a felony, fined up to $25,000 and face up to five years in prison.

Supporters and opponents of bill react

Opponents of the bill say it's a reflection of a growing movement to ban books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. Critics argue the bill will lead to further bans and potential criminal charges against librarians for books that include sexual content, such as classical literature.

During a public hearing on the bill last Friday, Democratic minority whip Shawn Fluharty said that "The librarians on staff might not know if a book has obscene matter in it or may or may not have shown it to someone," reported the Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

"But because it was in the facility and it was sitting on a shelf, it could still be prosecuted,” he said. “What you are seeing is done in third-world countries, and now it’s going to be a headline in West Virginia."

Supporters of HB4654 said the bill does not ban books or prohibit adults from distributing books with obscene materials, the newspaper reported.

Republican Delegate Elliott Pritt, who is also a teacher's aide, said that what the bill does do "is stop obscene and pornographic material, sexually explicit materials from being available to children in public taxpayer-funded spaces," the newspaper reported.

How is 'obscene matter' defined?

West Virginia State Code defines obscene matter as anything "an average person believes depicts or describes sexually explicit conduct," including nudity, sex or certain bodily functions.

It's also defined by "anything a reasonable person would find lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value," according to the bill .

Book bans increasing across the U.S.

The American Library Association found that obscenity allegations have been used to ban books that highlight LGBTQ+ topics, sex education and race.

Within the first eight months of 2023, the association found that nearly 700 attempts were made to censor library materials, a 20% increase from the same reporting period the previous year.

In a Maryland school library, empty shelves are about to get emptier

While the nation has been focusing on book bans, some schools have gone without enough (noncontroversial) books. one elementary school has been trying to raise funds..

books library germs

A fourth-grade girl with Velcro straps on her pink and white tennis shoes wishes her school library had enough books to ensure that when she finishes reading one she enjoys, she could walk over to a shelf and pick a similar one.

“Sometimes I just choose the same book, because I can’t find one I like,” she says as she sits at a table in her school’s cafeteria.

Near her sits a long-legged fifth-grader who wishes the library had more comfortable chairs. The chairs there now have short legs and hard backs.

Next to her sits a fifth-grade girl who is tired of looking at the library’s brown and bare shelves. She wishes those shelves were at least painted in brighter “more fun” colors.

Getting children to read more can sometimes pose a challenge. But students at Oxon Hill Elementary School in Prince George’s County, Md., know exactly what would help pull them into their school’s library and make them want to stay there. They also know that the grown-ups around them have been trying to fulfill their wishes.

While the nation has been focusing on book bans, school libraries all around us have gone without enough (noncontroversial) books. Or inviting furniture. Or amenities that would help create a sense of community. Oxon Hill is one of those schools.

Her book empowers Black children, and hopefully won’t enrage adults

For the past year, staff members and parents have been working to raise money to give students at the school the library of their dreams. But they remain far from their goal. I hadn’t planned to tell you about the library, but then I saw it while visiting the school recently for another purpose. It’s impossible to walk through the building and not notice the library. It sits smack in the middle of an open space between hallways.

The library, in some ways, is like many school libraries. It is decorated with posters that feature cartoonish animals and words that encourage young minds to get lost in books. “Reading Helps you Imagine,” reads one. “Come. Stay. Read a great tale!” reads another.

But, unlike some libraries, it also has this: empty shelves that are about to get emptier.

A few years ago, the school had to remove a large number of books as part of a weeding process that is required by the state to make sure old and damaged books don’t remain on the shelves. The school’s librarian, Jannie Cobb, said another weeding process will require her to remove 5 percent more of the school’s books by April.

“I understand the reasoning, because you do want to have up-to-date collections,” Cobb, whose official title at the school is media specialist, told me when I asked about the state of the library.

Removing the books has not been the problem, she said. Replacing them and adding more popular titles has been the challenge because of the school’s limited resources. About 80 percent of the school’s 229 students qualify for free and reduced lunch, and the school does not have an active PTA, which is how many schools raise extra funds. The library collects some funds through the Scholastic Book Fair, but that money does not stretch far, Cobb said.

Right now, a child at the school who finishes “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and wants to keep reading through the series will find the library’s collection incomplete. The same is true for the popular graphic novels by Dav Pilkey.

“There are so many series that are incomplete because we don’t have the resources to put them in place and put them in kids’ hands,” Cobb said. “It really tears at my heart when kids come into the library and they are looking for books and they aren’t finding the books they want. Then they say, ‘There are no books in there for me.’”

Cobb has wishes, too, for the library. She would like to see it get more comfortable furniture, partitions that offer some soundproofing so she can give lessons without surrounding noises distracting students and more “books, books and books.”

“I hope that the library will be transformed into an inviting place of wonder where kids will want to come in and lose themselves in the stories contained on the shelves, so that they forget about whatever problems may exist at home or in their lives, at least for a little while,” she said. “This will, I hope, help to transform their lives as well so that they begin to see themselves as future teachers, lawyers, doctors, policemen and firefighters, and know that it is attainable.”

The valentine I gave myself — the braces I should have gotten as a child

Sibigi Lipford-Transou, who became the school’s principal last year, said she noticed the state of the library the first day she walked through the building. She recalled her first thought: “I can’t be the only one this bothers.”

Since then, school officials have met with an architectural firm to get ideas for making improvements, and the school community has held two fundraisers for the library. Lipford-Transou said the estimated cost for making the improvements is about $25,000, and the fundraisers have so far brought in about $9,000.

“It’s nowhere near the amount we need,” she said. Even so, she said, the children and their families are proud of what they have been able to raise.

Last year’s fundraiser ended with Lipford-Transou and the school’s vice principal sitting on a stage, taking pies to the face. They had agreed to that public punishment if the fundraising amount hit a certain benchmark.

“That took me out of my comfort zone,” Lipford-Transou said. “That’s how much I wanted to improve that library.”

Lipford-Transou said she hopes to create the library students and the staff want. She also wants to add computers, so that parents who may not have access to one at home can come in to fill out forms and take care of other online needs.

The school, which has a student body that is mostly Latino and African American, faces many of the same challenges as schools across the country. One is absenteeism. Another is the lack of transportation for some students who are left to walk routes that aren’t ideal. Those issues take time and collaboration to fix. Improving a library just takes will and money — and the school has one and is working on the other.

Cobb said the fundraisers have energized the students, and now they don’t only ask her if she has the latest “Dog Man” book.

“They come to me and say, ‘When are they going to renovate the library?’” she said. “I tell them, ‘We’re still working on it.’”

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Georgia GOP senators seek to ban sexually explicit books from school libraries, reduce sex education

FILE - Books sit on shelves in an elementary school library in suburban Atlanta, Aug. 18, 2023. A Georgia state Senate committee on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024, advanced a proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents by email of every book a child obtains. (AP Photo/Hakim Wright Sr., File)

FILE - Books sit on shelves in an elementary school library in suburban Atlanta, Aug. 18, 2023. A Georgia state Senate committee on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024, advanced a proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents by email of every book a child obtains. (AP Photo/Hakim Wright Sr., File)

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ATLANTA (AP) — Republican senators in Georgia want to cull sexually explicit books from schools, ban sex education for younger students, display the Ten Commandments in classrooms and allow religious chaplains to counsel teachers and students.

The measures, which passed Senate committees Wednesday, could spark contentious debate ahead of a key legislative deadline next week. Many of them mimic measures passed in other states, part of a broad GOP effort to reshape education.

It’s not clear if the bills would be favorably received in Georgia’s traditionally more moderate House. But even if they don’t pass, they will give Republican senators a chance to display their conservative stripes in an election year where some could face primary challenges.

Here’s a look at the measures, each of which will go to the full Senate for consideration:

Students walk down a hallway at a high school in Iowa on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006. In 2024, bills in the Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and West Virginia legislatures would require public school students to watch a fetal development video similar to one created by an anti-abortion group. The proposed legislation mirrors a law passed in North Dakota last year. (Scott Morgan/The Hawk Eye via AP)

SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIALS

Public schools would be banned from acquiring any materials that depict sex acts after Dec. 1 under Senate Bill 394 , dubbed the “Clean Libraries Act” by its sponsor, Senate Education Committee Chairman Clint Dixon.

“It has to do with sexual content in books,” said Dixon, a Buford Republican. “Heterosexual, homosexual, any of that, we don’t want to expose our kids to any of that when they’re minors.”

The measure passed by the Education Committee would ban distribution of any sexual materials to students in sixth grade and below and restrict them for seventh grade and above. At least some materials deemed necessary for teaching could be accessed by older students with written parental permission.

The rules would apply to books, videos, sound recordings, websites or other electronic material. “Materials of great religious or historical significance” may be exempt if they don’t “portray sexually explicit material in a patently offensive way.”

The measure would create a council to set standards and restrict materials.

CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR LIBRARIANS

Senate Bill 154 , also passed by the Education Committee, would subject K-12 librarians to criminal penalties if they violate state obscenity laws. Current law exempts public librarians, as well as those who work for public schools, colleges and universities, from penalties for distributing material that meets Georgia’s legal definition of “harmful to minors.”

The bill makes school librarians subject to penalties only if they “knowingly” give out such material. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Greg Dolezal of Cumming, says Georgia shouldn’t have a double standard allowing for the prosecution of teachers for obscenity but not librarians down the hall.

The bill was amended to let librarians argue that they should be exempt from prosecution if schools review every item in a library for obscenity. Sen. Ed Setzler, the Acworth Republican who offered the amendment, said the measure “creates an incentive for schools to scrub their libraries.”

SEX EDUCATION

School districts could drop sex education and students would only be enrolled if parents specifically opt in under Senate Bill 532 , which the Education Committee also passed. Dixon’s measure would ban all sex education in fifth grade and below. It would keep the requirement for age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention education.

“This bill protects our kids and keeps our children from premature education on sexual topics for children who are 10 to 11 years old or younger,” said Chelsea Thompson, a lawyer for the Christian conservative group Frontline Policy Institute.

Currently state sex education standards call for little explicit discussion of human reproduction below eighth grade, although second graders are supposed to learn the names of all body parts and “appropriate boundaries around physical touch.” Fifth graders are supposed to learn about puberty, and most mandated sex education happens in a high school health course.

The bill would require the state Board of Education to set new standards and let any school district refuse to teach sex education. Instead of the current parental opt-out system for sex education, it would be opt-in.

SCHOOL CHAPLAINS

Public schools would be able to use chaplains under Senate Bill 379 , which passed the Government Oversight Committee. Chairman and bill sponsor Marty Harbin, a Tyrone Republican, said chaplains provide an outlet for conversations that students don’t feel comfortable having with counselors.

“We need good, sound counsel sometimes, or just a friend to talk to. Isolation is a real problem today,” Harbin said.

The bill would leave it to school districts to decide whether to hire chaplains or accept volunteers, and to determine qualifications for chaplains. Democrats expressed concerns about qualifications for chaplains, as well as whether they are appropriate for schools.

“How are we going to verify that these chaplains are prepared for secular spaces?” said Sen. Nabilah Islam Parks, a Democrat from Duluth.

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

The Government Oversight Committee also advanced a bill that would ban the spending of public money on the American Library Association . Sen. Larry Walker III, a Perry Republican, has said Senate Bill 390 is needed because he believes the association is a “radical, left-leaning organization.” The move comes among other attempts nationwide by Republicans to cut ties to it.

Walker amended his original bill to let Valdosta State University continue paying for ALA accreditation for its master’s degree in library science after university officials warned that losing accreditation would wreck the program and drive students out of state. Walker had also originally proposed to abolish state certification for librarians, but his amended bill shifts certification to the Georgia Council of Public Libraries.

TEN COMMANDMENTS

The Government Oversight Committee also advanced a bill that would add the Ten Commandments to the list of historic civic documents schools are encouraged to display, alongside texts like the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address.

“To be ignorant of the Ten Commandments is actually to be uneducated, because they are a foundation of all law,” said Harbin, the sponsor of Senate Bill 501 .

The measure enshrines the text of the Ten Commandments found in the Protestant King James Version of the Bible. Other Christian and Jewish texts have different versions.

Harbin said displaying the precepts would encourage virtue: “These have been hidden to us, to a great degree, and from our people and from our students.”

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How to get to books in your Kindle library

Dave Johnson

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books library germs

One of the Kindle’s greatest strengths is its ability to store an enormous number of books, so you can take your entire library with you wherever you go. It’s so slim and light, in fact, that you’ll never have to go anywhere again without something to read. But if you buy a new Kindle device or install the Kindle app on your phone or tablet, how do you get to your library of Kindle titles? It’s super easy—here’s what you need to know.

Man in bed reading on his Kindle.

How to get to your library on your Kindle

Your library of books and documents is easy to get to on your Kindle—you just need to find the home page. If your Kindle is already in a book, just tap anywhere along the top of the screen. You should see a drop-down menu appear with a variety of options like font, bookmarks, and search. On the left side, you should see Home . Tap that.

Now you’re on the home page. In the From Your Library section, you can see some of your most recently opened titles. Or tap the Library tab at the bottom of the screen to browse your entire library.

How to get your library onto your Kindle

A person reading on a Kindle device.

But what if you don’t see your Kindle library on your Kindle at all? The good news is that your library should automatically appear on your Kindle device and on any Kindle apps you've installed on devices like your phone or tablet. You simply need to sign in with the same Amazon account that you used to purchase the Kindle books to start with. For most people, that’s easy—you probably only have a single Amazon account, so use that to sign into the Kindle device or app.

But if your Kindle device is already connected to an Amazon account that’s not yours, you’ll need to deregister it from that account and then sign in with your own. To do that, go to your Kindle’s home page and tap the three dots at the top right of the screen. In the drop-down menu, choose Settings , then Your account . Finally, tap Deregister device and follow the instructions to remove the Kindle from that account.

Person reading on a Kindle device.

After that, you can sign into your own Amazon account on that Kindle and you’ll see your own Kindle book library appear on the device. 

How to troubleshoot your Kindle if it’s not showing your library

Most of the time, you’ll be able to see your library on your Kindle without any difficulty. But on those rare occasions when your titles aren’t showing up on your Kindle and you know you’re signed into the right Amazon account, there are a few simple troubleshooting steps you can take.

First, make sure your Kindle is connected to the internet—you should see a Wi-Fi symbol at the top of the home page. If you don’t, tap the three dots at the top right of the screen. In the drop-down menu, choose Settings , then Wi-Fi and Bluetooth , and ensure Airplane mode is off and the device is connected to Wi-Fi.

Then swipe down from the very top of the screen to reveal the Quick Actions menu. Tap Sync and let the Kindle ensure your data is up to date.

One last thing to try: restart your Kindle. Press and hold the power button until you see the pop-up Power window. Choose Restart and let the Kindle shut off, and then turn back on again. Sync the Kindle one more time. If none of those steps work, you might need to contact Amazon’s customer service .

Next learn about the Kindle features that make reading more fun .

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8 lesser-known Kindle features that make reading easier and more fun

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Ryan Walters says voters elected him to decide which books should be in school libraries.

State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters says his election in a statewide race is a primary reason why the state Board of Education has the right to decide what books should be on the shelves of libraries in school districts with locally elected school boards.

State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters addresses the board at the February meeting of the Oklahoma state school board, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024.

After Thursday's state board meeting Walters was asked about a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Edmond Public Schools against him, the state board and the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Edmond Superintendent Angela Grunewald said the lawsuit was filed after the OSDE threatened to lower the district’s accreditation over a dispute about books in the libraries of the district’s three high schools. The Edmond school board voted unanimously to approve the lawsuit.

In its lawsuit, the district asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to decide whether the state board or a local, elected school board has the authority to establish policies concerning books in the district’s libraries. On Wednesday afternoon, the court set a hearing in the case before a court referee on March 5.

The district, and at least one influential state lawmaker, has cast the issue as one of local control. But Walters seemed to reject that idea when meeting with members of the media after Thursday’s meeting.

Why have a state department of education?

“We have the authority to ensure that there’s not pornography or sexually explicit material in the classroom, so we’re going to exercise that authority,” Walters said. If a district is able to do whatever it wants, he asked "why do we have a State Department of Education? Why did voters vote for me to be in this position? To go in and clean schools up."

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Walters said, "We’re going to be asking questions." He said "ensuring that districts aren’t abusing students and parents by putting that kind of filth in front of their kids is how we’ve gotten the state back on track. I’m not going to let the state go backwards, because we have a few rogue districts that want to go out there and allow pornography in classrooms across the state.”

Local control, he said, "left us with ‘Gender Queer,’ ‘Flamer’ and all of these books in classrooms across the state. So we came into office and said this isn’t going to be allowed anymore."

Neither of those books were cited by OSDE’s general counsel, Bryan Cleveland, in his letter to the Edmond district. Cleveland’s letter said two other books, the “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini had been reviewed by the agency’s Library Media Advisory Committee and deemed unfit for a school library.

The only publicly identified member of that committee is Chaya Raichik , a New York woman behind the conservative “Libs of TikTok” social media account. OSDE officials have steadfastly refused to reveal the names of other board members.

Edmond: "We do not have pornography in our libraries"

Grunewald disputed the committee’s finding on Tuesday, emphatically saying, “We do not have pornography in our classrooms and our libraries at Edmond Public Schools.”

The lawsuit also questions the legality of the process used by the state board to pass rules such as the one it adopted in March 2023, when it approved a proposal by Walters to ban “pornographic” materials from school libraries. The district argues the rules didn’t go into effect because they were disapproved by the Legislature. Gov. Kevin Stitt later approved them anyway.

Walters said the Edmond district is “challenging the entire rule and saying the State Department of Education cannot take pornography off the shelves for your kids. The voters were clear in Oklahoma, when they voted me into office, to clean up our schools and get the focus back on academics. We have done that from day one and you now have a district, Edmond Public Schools, that want to be the champion of bringing pornography back to schools, by claiming we don’t have that authority. That’s an outrageous accusation.”

Lawmaker says Edmond district should insist on local control

State Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, the chair of the state House of Representatives’ appropriation and budget subcommittee on education, has said the Edmond district is well within its legal right to insist on local control on such an issue.

It was McBride’s letter to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond that led to an opinion from Drummond last April about whether or not the state Board of Education had the authority to make rules such as the one regarding pornographic material.

The opinion said while the Legislature can authorize the state board to make rules, the section law (Title 70, Section 3-104 of the Oklahoma Statutes) “does not authorize rulemaking on a specific statute or subject.” Drummond's opinion also said “(a)ny rule promulgated relying only on the general ‘powers and duties’ within (that section of law) is invalid and may not be enforced by the State Department of Education or the Board.”

Last March , Drummond also warned that state agencies can't enact administrative rules without first receiving a directive from the Oklahoma Legislature.

“It’s a local-control issue and I think the attorney general has answered that question,” McBride said Wednesday. “As a Republican, I believe in local control and not a nanny state.”

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  26. Georgia GOP senators seek to ban sexually explicit books from school

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