“It's like a mini car wash for books, minus the water!”
August 2, 2017 4:26 PM   Subscribe

This Machine Helps Libraries Clean Books With Ease. [Popular Mechanics] “Libraries have been early tech adopters for decades now, with public internet and digital lending a staple for many municipalities. These innovations, while useful, look past the library's books. No more. Meet the Depulvera, seen here at the Boston Public Library [@BPLBoston]. From a company called Oracle, the Depulvera can handle twelve books a minute, fed by a human librarian. The company calls it a "complete automatic book cleaning system realized to remove dust from books." It's completely portable, which means you could even use it in your tiny shed library in the woods. You can watch a surprisingly dramatic promotional video for the product.
posted by Fizz (11 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
An interesting use of the word 'portable'
posted by slater at 4:30 PM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


When I was in high school I worked at the main branch of the city library in a 100 year old un-climate-controlled building which still maintained the practice of closed stacks not open to the public. Book dust is no joke--it's the worst. I'd be sneezing and blowing black shit out of my nose for days every time we had a shifting or weeding project in the closed stacks. Could definitely have used one of these gizmos!
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:40 PM on August 2, 2017 [5 favorites]


From a company called whaaa???
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:48 PM on August 2, 2017


Why would someone put a cat in there!?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 5:58 PM on August 2, 2017


MeFi has the best librarian porn.
posted by zakur at 7:11 PM on August 2, 2017 [6 favorites]


Well, Oracle's R&D and engineering groups seem pretty on point. Marketing, OTOH...

(Dear God, that music made me want to fly to Italy to kill something!)
posted by Samizdata at 8:38 PM on August 2, 2017


This is really neat! I agree with slater that it doesn't really seem "portable" in any typical use of the word, but I would love to see this in use.
posted by SeedStitch at 5:46 AM on August 3, 2017


Partner is a bookbinder for a large university library's circulating collection (and does other fun book/old paper preservation stuff, too). It's through him that I learned the acronym SDB. I don't think this would deal with SDB.

SDB: Sexually damaged books.

Ew.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:17 AM on August 3, 2017


It also wouldn't handle what's usually the nastiest category in a public library's collection: cookbooks. Weeding those was always a special treat.
posted by asperity at 8:36 AM on August 3, 2017


Let's get to the heart of the matter: home use version WHEN?
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 10:43 AM on August 3, 2017


Some libraries lend tools. It would be cool if they included this in that program.

I mean, it may be "portable" but I sure wouldn't want to have to store it. But it would be awesome to borrow it for a few days now and then.
posted by elizilla at 10:59 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


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