Category: Art Conservation
Building a Database of Poisonous Books
July 06, 2026 Written by Brayden Moore, WUDPAC Class of 2028 Fellow | Melissa Tedone and Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation
Drawn to the opportunity to help develop a public resource, Brayden Moore, a UD history master’s student in the Class of 2026 and a Winterthur Program in American Material Culture student in the Class of 2028, joined an interdisciplinary initiative at Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library and UD examining hazardous materials in Victorian-era bookbindings.
Last fall, I saw an announcement for an assistantship position with Winterthur’s Poison Book Project (PBP), headed by Dr. Melissa Tedone and Dr. Rosie Grayburn. Art conservation, with its chemistry-heavy focus, is not my background, so I was initially intimidated by the idea of joining a team that tested poisonous books. It was not until I explored the Arsenical Book Database—the compilation of collected and submitted data on hundreds of identified arsenical books held in institutions around the world—that I understood the value of this position as a chance to help develop a public resource. I applied and was subsequently hired for the assistantship position, which is generously supported by the Nadia Sophie Seiler Fund.
One of my main tasks has been responding to email inquiries from concerned individuals and institutions with potentially hazardous books. In most cases, I’m able to deliver the relieving—or possibly disappointing—news that the book in question is non-arsenical. On a few occasions, however, I have advised owners of arsenical books to treat their newly-discovered hazards with special care. Our recommendations include storage in a zip-top bag and, of course, hand washing after handling all historical bindings! Aside from email correspondence, I’ve had the opportunity to share our work through guest lectures, most recently for the New Orleans Association of Law Librarians.
I also maintain the PBP website as well as the database of known arsenical books, which is itself a product of collaboration with a worldwide network of libraries and other collecting institutions. During my time with the PBP, I was able to add enough contributed data to increase the database to over 400 books!
While reviewing submissions from various institutions, I noticed inconsistent terms being used to refer to the same or similar bookbinding elements. I suggested to my supervisors that the database could benefit from a standardized vocabulary, and since then have been working on controlled terminology that we plan to incorporate into the data submission process.
Developing this standardized terminology has been a group effort. Beyond my supervisors, I have benefited from the collaboration and collective knowledge of an interdisciplinary group of scholars in the emerging field of bibliotoxicology— the study of toxic materials in library collections. As part of my assignment to standardize our database vocabulary, I conveyed a meeting of the Bibliotoxicology Working Group (BibTox) to collect feedback and refine our terminology. I was very grateful for the support of many scholars and professionals much more knowledgeable than myself!
As a museum professional expecting a career in collections and curation, my role with the Poison Book Project has been a valuable experience with public engagement, collections data management, as well as a rare opportunity to work in the midst of a developing scholarly field. It also provided me with the chance to observe the intellectual culture of Winterthur as a research institution, one that I am thrilled to be joining as an upcoming student in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture Class of 2028!
