Last week I was visiting Wittenberg University in Springfield Ohio to give a lecture and was given a tour of the impressive rare book room in the bowels of their library. Before my hosts and I were brought in we were instructed to wash our hands carefully, and informed that current protocol is NOT to wear gloves when touching ancient books. Whoa? Really?
News to me. Back when I was particularly interested in ancient books and manuscripts in my graduate days and early career, it was definitely gloves, to keep any oil / dirt / whatever on the fingers from contaminating the page. That’s still obviously the problem, but rather than separating the human skin from animal skin (vellum/parchment) with latex, it apparently is better simply to wash the hands well. That’s because
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