Overview

• Restoration teams have begun sealing roughly 100,000 handbound books in hermetically sealed sacks filled with pure nitrogen to eradicate drugstore beetles.
• The infestation affects about a quarter of the abbey’s 400,000-volume collection and was first detected during routine cleaning when dust buildups and burrowed spine holes emerged.
• Chief restorer Zsófia Edit Hajdu has classified the entire library as infected, marking an unprecedented level of damage at the millennium-old site.
• Monastic custodians link the outbreak to warmer regional temperatures that have accelerated beetle life cycles and are stepping up climate-linked risk assessments.
• The library will remain closed throughout the disinfection and conservation process, with custodians targeting a phased reopening in early 2026.