How long would today's books last in a post-apocalyptic setting?

Question

In my setting, the modern world ended catastrophically 500-ish years ago in-setting, which would be about 2150 as the event date. So the "present" is 2650 ish.

Judging by the research I've done so far, most of our artifacts would be degraded to the point of being unrecognizable even within just that time frame, but there are rare "preserved sites" that are still in pristine condition due to their self-sustaining network of maintenance drones.

In one of these sites, a hospital, assuming the interior conditions stayed the same as it was when it was fully staffed and functional, how long could books last? Textbooks, library books, etc are not within the scope of the maintenance drones' routine, and thus they would have not been purposely preserved. There is no intentional pest control other than when a drone happens to see a bug. There is no intentional climate control geared toward keeping the books intact, but the operating conditions of the hospital are maintained as I said above, so roughly 70 degrees F all the time (room temp). The area starts out humid (minnesota) but desertifies over the centuries until it is arid. There are no people, so they are not read regularly.

If an explorer found this site, what would the books be like? Would they still be plausibly readable, or crumbled to dust?

Edited to answer the most common objections of not enough info in the comments.

Answer 1

For reference:

• Books printed before the year 1500 of the common era are called incunables and can be really expensive. Prices in the thousands of dollars or euros are usual, tens of thousand are not unheard of, and truly important books can be very much more expensive.

• Books printed after 1500 CE, 524 years ago as of 2024, are just old books and can be found for sale in specialized shops in any large city, at least here in Europe. A 16th century book may set you back about one or two thousand dollars or euros. A book which is merely three hundred years old will rarely reach a thousand dollar or euros, and two hundred years old books are very common.

The point is that decent quality paper lasts for a really long time, provided it is kept dry and not set on fire. No special maintenance is needed.

Note 1: Typographic ink is not acidic. This means that the durability of the paper is the important factor, the ink is pretty much inert.

Note 2: Around the middle of the 19th century, inventors introduced a method of making very cheap paper from chemically pulped wood. This kind of paper is inherently acidic, and will self-destruct in a matter of decades. In the 20th century dirt-cheap paper known as newsprint was used for newspapers, and many mass-market paperback books. Fortunately, better paper was used for more upmarket books and for most textbooks.

In the end, after 500 years, a reference library which has not been drenched in water and has not been burned will still be in a good condition. Maybe some cheap books would have self-destructed, but I don't see why such books would have been placed in hospital's reference library in the first place.

Dessert

Speaking of 500 years old medical reference books, a digitized copy of Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), the first modern comprehensive book of human anatomy, is available free of charge at the Internet Archive. This beautifully illustrated book was printed in Basel in 1543, 481 years ago as of the writing of this answer.

Answer 2

Decades or centuries, depending

This depends on whether or not the paper is acid-free. Traditionally, paperbacks and other cheap books (inlcuding comic books) were printed on acidic paper (because it is cheaper), and this begins to crumble after a handful of decades. I have a few paperbacks at least 80 years old, but the paper has browned a lot.

Acid-free paper lasts quite a lot longer. It is used for most books today, and has traditionally also been used for hardcover books This source says it can last more than a thousand years.

Answer 3

Depends on the kinds of document

Since this is a hospital, we can generally assume there are 3 kinds of printed products being stored: Medical Records, Published Textbooks, and Laminated Reference Charts.

Medical Records are typically printed on 20# standard white printer paper. Since hospitals are only required to keep the documents for 6 years, they generally do not spend the extra money on acid free printer papers; so, these papers will all start to spontaneously decompose within a few decades no matter how well you store them and many of them will be to degraded to handle within 100 years.

The textbooks are going to come in a wide range of qualities. Although textooks tend to be printed on Acid-Free papers, medical textbooks are notorious for thier high color imagery and glossy pages. Unfortunately a lot of the glosses in use today are themselves acidic; so, even though the paper itself is made to last, the finishing process may not be. The images in these textbooks may begin to discolor withing the first few decades, and the pages as a whole be mostly unreadable within 100 years, but the pages themselves will probably last much longer than the medical documents. That said, there will probably also be a fair number of medical textbooks that don't use any harmful UV coatings. These could in theory still be readable 500 years later as long as they are well stored.

Lastly you will have your laminated reference documents. Laminated documents are in theory the most durable option since the plastics could easily take hundreds of years to break down. That said, how they are stored matters a lot. Most inks will fade over time if exposed to harsh lighting, and these documents tend to be put out on display where this can become an issue after a few decades; so, all your laminated medical posters that are kept hanging in well lit rooms the whole time will likely still be intact, but horribly discolored and faded. But, any that are kept in a dark room the whole time should remain in pretty good condition, even after hundreds of years.

Answer 4

One more important issue regarding duration of books is the printing method. When you have a computer printer then it can be ink printer or laser printer.

The laser printer has also taken over a part of the commercial marked of books in resent years especially for print-on-demand titles.

Where ink on paper last long, then these new books. (as well as documents printer by a normal laser printer) will not last as long. Since this is a new technology then how they would act in 500 years would be guesswork, but I would think they are just blank pages with some black dust underneath.