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This Library Has A 'Mini Car Wash' For All Of Its Dirty Books

And it's perfect.
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The romantics among us swoon over images of seemingly endless library shelves. But if you work in said library ― or happen to own a few shelves’ worth of books yourself ― a more practical concern leaps to mind: How do you keep all of those books dust-free?

There’s not an app for that (yet), but there is what Boston Public Library describes as its “mini car wash for books,” a machine that can clean around 12 books per minute.

The Boston institution shared a video of the machine in action on Twitter and explained how it’s used in its stacks. Books get the tune-up after they’re requested or digitized, the library explained.

“We do not use this machine on our rare books, just the books from our closed stacks. Most closed stack books don’t have dust jackets,” the library tweeted. Rare books, meanwhile, require more individualized care.

The Depulvera, as it’s called, isn’t the only book-dusting machine; it has competitors. But it is the only book-dusting machine being touted by a frightening ad and a lofty battle song.

H/T DesignTAXI

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Before You Go

9 Novels That Will Keep You In Suspense
'Leaving Berlin' by Joseph Kanon(01 of09)
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"Another compelling, intellectually charged period piece by Kanon, who works in the shadows of fear as well as anyone now writing."Set in 1949, a few years after Kanon's The Good German (2001), this novel explores the grave moral complexities of life in Soviet-controlled East Berlin through the tense encounters of Alex Meier, a young Jewish novelist of some renown working for the CIA. Read full book review.
'World Gone By' by Dennis Lehane(02 of09)
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"On one level, a very moving meditation on fathers and sons; on another, an illumination of character and fate."A multilayered, morally ambiguous novel of family, blood and betrayal. Read full book review.
'Too Bad To Die' by Francine Mathews(03 of09)
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"Mathews writes well, keeps the pace brisk and has great fun re-creating historical personages."If the title sounds reminiscent of a James Bond novel, it's no coincidence, for Mathews freely makes use of Ian Fleming's World War II experience as an intelligence officer in Cairo and Tehran to create adventures in espionage and counterespionage. Read full book review.
'The Whites' by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt(04 of09)
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