Idea: For long-term storage & preservation of rare "treasures" (whether they be museums pieces, library books, national archive documents, or whoever), invest in oxygen-depleted facilities. At low-enough O2, nothing aerobic - be it bacteria, mold, bug, rodent, or whatever - can grow. Most can't even live. Gradual oxidation damage (paper turning yellow then brown, etc.) ceases. And disastrous fires can't happen.
xerophiles can also be anaerobic. Certain Aspergillus can even show certain adaptations for anaerobic conditions. I wonder if we would just be pushing their evolution in that direction
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions
From the perspective of an archive, library, or museum preservation isn't really the goal in itself, just a strictly mandatory prerequisite. The pieces have to be made available to researchers (and depending on the institution the public) for the archive to be able to consider itself fulfilling its mission.
There is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
And yet, the curators, when told to give the stolen museum pieces back, always retort, "But we take care of these items in ways the savages in the countries where we stole them from would be incapable of."
Submerge them in drawers filled with Argon or Xenon gas when filing them away. This would also help to fireproof the artifacts.
How about a tar pit
Idea: For long-term storage & preservation of rare "treasures" (whether they be museums pieces, library books, national archive documents, or whoever), invest in oxygen-depleted facilities. At low-enough O2, nothing aerobic - be it bacteria, mold, bug, rodent, or whatever - can grow. Most can't even live. Gradual oxidation damage (paper turning yellow then brown, etc.) ceases. And disastrous fires can't happen.
xerophiles can also be anaerobic. Certain Aspergillus can even show certain adaptations for anaerobic conditions. I wonder if we would just be pushing their evolution in that direction
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions
The car guys have done it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stfjVt0AbFU
From the perspective of an archive, library, or museum preservation isn't really the goal in itself, just a strictly mandatory prerequisite. The pieces have to be made available to researchers (and depending on the institution the public) for the archive to be able to consider itself fulfilling its mission.
There is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
It will make retrieval challenging and dangerous.
And yet, the curators, when told to give the stolen museum pieces back, always retort, "But we take care of these items in ways the savages in the countries where we stole them from would be incapable of."