Decipherment of text on foxed documents by Hyperspectral Imaging on VSC 6000

Abstract

Foxing is a process of deterioration that generates spots and browning on ancient paper documents such as books, monographs, postage stamps, certificates, etc. It is believed that metals and bacteria are the primary causes of foxing production. According to scientific studies, physical, chemical, and biological processes degrade paper. Paper is especially prone to biodeterioration processes due to its organic composition and hygroscopic nature; as a result, foxed paper becomes weaker, more fragile, and more acidic than undamaged paper. In circumstances where the text of a book or other document becomes unreadable owing to foxing, measures must be established to make the content readable. In the present study, efforts were made to understand the unreadable text content of books damaged by foxing, and the capabilities of Hyperspectral Image on VSC 6000 employing Near-Infrared Multispectral imaging analysis were presented. It is a method for optimising spectral differences that is non-invasive. First, microbiological flora (fungal and bacterial) from old books were identified, followed by the selection of the mechanism of VSC. The results revealed a correlation between fungal foxing and bacterial foxing, leading to the conclusion that fungus foxing necessitates distinct wavelength ranges between 600 and 800 nm for the decipherment of text, but bacterial foxing allows for decipherment at 645nm.

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