How can I demoldify books that were in a moldy basement?

put all your books in a bag with some baking soda for a few weeks.

Depends on how moldy they are. They could be so moldy that they’ve been partially destroyed.

A possibility is to set the books out in the sun for a day, and then seal them up in an air tight container partially filled with unscented cat litter. Lysol and sunlight will both kill mold, but be careful with using Lysol because it will wrinkle the pages.

Here is a useful professional site geared toward librarians and that has lots of useful links.

And here is another professional source.

Lurve for using the word “Demoldify.”

Wow…I never knew there could be any kind of cure. Thanks for asking this question!

We used this stuff called “Scott’s Liquid Gold Mold Control 500” it’s scary stuff. But works amazingly well—we weren’t using it on books, but on particle-board (Ikea) furniture that had been in storage.

It won’t undo any actual damage, but it will completely kill and remove any mold on both porous and non-porous surfaces. It may also lift the inks and/or eat the paper, but it might work. I would treat one page at a time, outside, and build some sort of rig to hold it while it dries.

Actually, with a book where the pages have been exposed to liquid of any type, you need to dry the book under a weight so the pages remain flat.

The books are fully intact—and no mold is in sight. They just smell like the basement they were in for 20 years.

Thanks for the creative and helpful answers.

So what did you do?