Light damage

Observe this striking example of how light can permanently damage your collections. 

Light speeds up the oxidation of paper, causing materials to deteriorate faster. It has a bleaching action, causing coloured papers and inks to whiten or fade and, at the same time, light can increase the chemical activity in paper, causing changes in colour particularly on poor quality paper like on the example below.  Light also generates heat and heat can also speed up the process of degradation of library materials. 

Ultraviolet light is the most harmful light, because the particular wavelength of ultraviolet light is very active, generating more radiation. Ultraviolet light is found in sunlight and fluorescent light, so both these types of light should be controlled in order to preserve library collections.