BOOKWORMS - The Insect Pests of Books
This book has been written for all who have the responsibility of caring for books, whether in an amateur or professional capacity. More especially it concerns the conservation of antiquarian books, collections of books in warm and subtropical climates and books where recent storage conditions have been less than ideal.
Although today many people have never seen one, it is certain that in the past a very high proportion of books were infested by insect pests, and they were frequently encountered by all habitual readers. The description 'bookworm' commonly signified anything that crept or crawled, as well as the larvae of insects.
Until a century or so ago, Europe was a vast repository of printed books, but there has been a considerable shift to North America and many great and important libraries of early books are now located there: not unexpectedly, many of the insect pests also are to be found on both sides of the Atlantic, as they are indeed in most temperate parts of the world. This work covers the insect pests of books in Europe and North America, and when appropriate other regions are mentioned also.