A slow fire is a term used in library and information science to describe paper embrittlement resulting from acid decay. The term is taken from the title of Terry Sanders' 1987 film Slow Fires: On the preservation of the human record.
Solutions to this problem include the use of acid-free paper stocks, reformatting brittle books by microfilming, photocopying or digitization, and a variety of deacidification techniques.
Famous quotes containing the words slow and/or fire:
“Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sunflecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)