ABSTRACT
Destruction of books and documents by pest organisms is an age-old problem, faced mainly by both librarians and archivists. The present study provides a brief report on the main actions and the results of the Integrated Management of Pests (IMP) implemented in the Judicial Archive of the City Council of Pitangui, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, during the months of January 2004 to August 2005. These actions included a survey of the pest organisms present both in the physical area of the archive and in the bibliographical material. All the material was treated through the controlled freezing method, which consistsin putting the bibliographical material into a freezer at negative temperatures for a predetermined time period. In the case of this method, the effectiveness of the control was evaluated through the verification of the presence of dead and living individuals, soon after the treatment and at three and six months later. The survey of the pest organisms in the physical area of the archive revealed the presence of the termite Cryptotermes brevis (Walker) and the ants Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius) and Camponotus sp. In the bibliographical material, in addition to the termite C. brevis there were identified beetles of the species Tricorynus herbarius (Gorham), silverfish Lepisma saccharina Linnaeus, and book lice of the genus Liposcelis sp. The control measures evidenced the effectiveness of the methods used, with no reoccurrence of the pest during the study period.
KEY WORDS
Pest organisms; historical archives; integrated pest management; archivology