Please do not microwave library books

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/latest-links/please-dont-microwave-library-books/

People are getting creative when it comes to staying safe from COVID-19, and it has prompted at least one Michigan library to issue a public warning: Stop microwaving books. A damaged book was returned to Kent District Library in Comstock Park, Michigan, after the metal RFID ignited in a microwave and left a hole in the book’s cover.

Burning is far more effective.

[Joanna Lytton-Vasey]

Re: Please do not microwave library books

Brother Dr. Toole, Sir, if this is good enough for Kent District, Michigan, it is good enough for the county of Kent, the somewhat weed-infested Garden of England. So I sent your helpful suggestion to our local librarian with the following message:

Here's a useful procedure that we could adopt at the Kent Libraries. We'll keep the staff safe this way.

Within minutes, he replied:

I shall forward this to be adopted immediately! I may even recommend submersion in boiling water as an additional step.

I think we can be confident that nobody will catch the Corvid from a library book.

Thank you for alerting us to the problem. Should the libraries ever re-open, it will make all the difference.

[WWJDnow]

Re: Please do not microwave library books

What kind of idiot microwaves a library book?

The only safe way to handle library books is to bleach them. Or to find a way to get UV light into them, either through the covers or otherwise. I understand that the National Institutes of Health are looking into that.