Several years ago, we had an air conditioning leakage problem at the American Numismatic Society resulting in some water damage occurring with respect to a few of our books. Fortunately we did not jump to some form of obvious answer like pull out a hair dryer, but instead contacted a book restoration expert. In sum, the best treatment for water damaged books is to freeze them and then dry them in a controlled environment. The books were restored literally as good as new.

But the part that I found so amazing is that after I became aware of the problem and solution, I had the occasion to be talking to Eric Newman and I mentioned the water damage and the first words out of his mouth were..."did you freeze the books?" After all these years, he never ceases to amaze me.