Ventilation Strategies for the Preventive Conservation of Manuscripts in Necip Paşa Library, İzmir-Turkey (original) (raw)

Libraries are specific spaces, of which indoor microclimate should meet rigorous requirements such as thermal comfort of humans and conservation of books, manuscripts and cultural property. Inadequate indoor microclimate (mainly temperature, relative humidity and of fluctuations) in libraries may possibly cause chemical, biological and mechanical degradations on paper-based collections. In this paper, indoor microclimate of Necip Paşa Library, the historical library located in Tire-Izmir, Turkey, was discussed from the perspective of preventive conservation of manuscripts. The library, which has no active heating, cooling and ventilation system, was modeled with the help of the building energy simulation tool, DesignBuilder. The indoor temperature and relative humidity was monitored throughout one year period and the model was calibrated with respect to the measurements. In order to reduce the degradation risks upon the manuscripts, ventilation srategies including natural and mechanical control were proposed. The results show that chemical degradation risks can be diminished to some extent.