American Technology May Dust Off Britain's Shrouded Heritage
Somerville, NJ (March 2002) - American know-how may help preserve Britain's endangered national treasures from what Sir Walter Scott termed "vile dust."
Alerted by news reports, the manufacturer of Dust-Off compressed gas duster has contributed a case of its large, economy-size compressed-gas duster to The National Trust in London, England. Fearing further damage to their priceless book collection, Trust officials have suspended annual dusting of 250,000 volumes at half of its 156 libraries for fear of further damage.
"With its heritage, Britain clearly has much to dust. From what librarians here report, though, we probably can help archivists add extra years to their 500-year-old books," said Ken Newman, a spokeman for Falcon Safety Products, the manufacturer of Dust-Off.
"Remember what Alexander Pope wrote about the passage of time, his forecast that 'proud glories in the dust shall lay.'"
At Woodbury University Library in Burbank, Calif., Rebecca Chamaa reports great success using the gas duster on shelved volumes. "The best use though is for our slides," she added. "Slides are very fragile and you can't touch the faces."
A commercial compressed-gas duster, Dust-Off was invented in the 1970s so news photographers could safely clean negatives and camera equipment. The product now is mostly found in office-supply outlets, for use in cleaning computer equipment.
For further information, contact:
- Andrew M. Steinman, Vice President of Marketing and Sales
- Falcon Safety Products, Inc.
- 25 Chubb Way, P.O. Box 1299
- Somerville, NJ 08876-1299
- Phone: 1-888-DUSTOFF
- fax: 908-707-8855
- e-mail: asteinman@falconsafety.com