A major restoration project is happening at the Pannonhalma Archabbey, a 1,000-year-old Benedictine monastery in northwestern Hungary. The monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the oldest religious and cultural centers in the country. During a regular cleaning, library workers found that thousands of books were infested with drugstore beetles. These insects usually eat dried food, but they can also damage books by feeding on the glue in handbound volumes. The infestation has affected about 100,000 books, which is one-fourth of the monastery’s 400,000-volume collection.

The abbey, founded in 996, holds Hungary’s oldest written records and rare manuscripts, including 19 codices and a 13th-century Bible. Experts are worried that some of the damaged works cannot be replaced, which could lead to a permanent loss of cultural and religious heritage. Restoration teams have started a strong disinfection process to remove the beetles. The books are being sealed in plastic containers filled with nitrogen to remove oxygen, making it impossible for the insects to survive. This process will take six weeks. After that, each book will be checked and cleaned carefully. The chief restorer believes climate change may have made the problem worse by helping the beetles reproduce more quickly.