The Frebreze might work but I'd be afraid of long term effects. Especially since there are so many different types of paper. Might work well with one type and cause another to disintegrate. You wouldn't know till 2-5-10 years down the line...
Interesting...brings up a question in my little 'Newbie' pea brain. Here goes:
You have a library of books. Many different amounts of wear, quality, ranking for sales. You may have 100+ year old books, things from the mid century, 20 year old things, & some less than a decade old. And some may be 'musty' smelling. If you do nothing to them re the odor, are they still saleable? How much does it lessen the value? And for the most part, (except in the case of rare, valuable titles) should one REALLY be concerned with disintegration? Consider the pollutants in the air, the atmospheric conditions, the physical abuse (or care) a book may have been exposed to over it's lifetime. If you were to put a bunch of books in a big garbage bag, then take a spray bottle of Febreze & spray into the bag, close bag & let it sit for maybe a few hours or overnite. Do you think that would be a lot worse than, say for example, the Lemon Pledge or Endust, or 409 or Windex that cleaning people may have sprayed the shelves books lived on? These books all lived in real world situations for their entire life. Just like we humans ingest lots of carcinogins from 2nd hand smoke, nitrates, smog, on and on.
Examples of what I've done:
Used 409 sprayed on paper towel to remove soil from DJs of all kinds (most are glossy paper). Used same to remove grime from old books, years of accumulated 'who knows what' from from books of all ages & condition. Used Goo Gone to remove sticky residue from books (bindings or DJs). This has resulted in much more cosmetically pleasing appearances to these books. Will this affect them years down the road? Who knows. But I wonder if this kamakze treatment will significantly be any worse than the effects that years of exposure to the above mentioned real world situations the books may have been living with.
And I'm also wondering this. The 'musty' smell. Since most books live their lives closed, would the 'must' be confined primarily to the bindings? Or does the aroma permeate all the pages as well? Would using the 'Febreze in a bag' or 'baking SODA (baking powder is different) in a bag' erradicate the majority of the smell? (I have almost no sense of smell, so I can't sniff a book & detect anything.)
So, if it makes books more saleable, isn't it worth it, rather than having a stack of books that you'll either have to throw out or put in the 'Good Will' box? With the exception of really rare, valueable books, aren't people just looking for books they want? Not with extremely long term collector value in mind?
I've very uneducated in the world of books, but I'm try to gain knowledge here.
