| USA TODAY
AP Topstories February 10
Here’s the latest for Wednesday, February 10: the Senate votes to hold Trump criminal trial; Democrats and Republicans start with presentations; House committee determining how schools should be reopened; California opens the vaccination site at NFL Stadium.
AP
The claim: The fire-fighting system of a Yale library causes all oxygen to leave the building, suffocating anyone in it to preserve the rare books
Yale’s world-famous Beinecke Library for Rare Books and Manuscripts contains some of the most important books in the world, including treasures such as an original Gutenberg Bible and a first copy of “Paradise Lost”.
Dozens of translucent marble panels from Vermont bathed its six-story top tower in a soft glow. These panels, which protect books from direct sunlight aging, are part of the library’s complex collection system for their collection, including an HVAC system that enables campus staff to ensure the building is at least 65 degrees at all times. Fahrenheit remains. .
In a viral tweet from 2018, revived in a viral Facebook post on February 7 that was shared more than 1,200 times, one user claimed that this system is not only complex but deadly. In the event of a fire, the user sucks, a system sucks all oxygen out of the building, which protects the centuries-old books, but kills someone who was unfortunate enough to be in the stacks at the time.
General myth
It’s a myth – one that has kept generations of undergraduate tour guides at Yale University alive.
Moira Fitzgerald, head of access services at Beinecke, told USA TODAY that the myth is so persistent and widespread that the library makes an effort to meet annually with tour guides to address common misconceptions about the Beinecke. Another common myth they address is, according to her, that the central book ring shoots like a rocket or sinks underground in a bomb shelter.
The original poster of the tweet, Michael-Vincent D’Anella-Mercanti (@mvddm), says he learned from the myth of his professor in medieval literature. He is shocked by the longevity of the post, he told USA TODAY. He added a thread to the tweet the same day with a Yale Daily News article that sparked the myth, but it went viral nonetheless.
The legend seems to have gained traction on every major platform. The original Twitter post was retweeted 22,400 times and liked by 55,200 users. The tweet has spread in several viral Instagram posts over the past two years. One Instagram post from February 6 got more than 65,000 likes, and this is how Sabby Jallim, who made the recent Facebook post, said she found the meme. One 2016 Reddit post even claims that the library requires visitors to sign a release acknowledging that this system can be used.
Comments on these posts were largely skeptical (“Don’t they have such PDFs?” ask one), but some were … enthusiastic. “As someone who once worked part-time at a library, I would do well,” wrote one. Another: “Books >>>> people.”
How the Beinecke Fires Really Prevent
The viral myth probably stems from misconceptions about the library’s high-tech fire suppression system – but this is not entirely false.
“The myth comes from a very old system that has not been used for decades,” Fitzgerald said.
From the opening of the Beinecke in 1963, the library’s fire protection plan used a Cardox system that would flood the stacks with CO2, leaving no harmful excess in books and still occurring among other chemicals in fire extinguishers on foam.
Like other “cleaners” that extinguish fires without leaving residue or water damage, CO2 prevents the reacting gas – oxygen in this case – from reaching a temperature high enough to incubate a fire. In the process, it dilutes the oxygen in the environment to a level that could pose health risks to humans, though not enough to kill them, according to a 2000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report.
The Beinecke moved away from the system in the 1980s, Fitzgerald said, in favor of a system that would flood the stacks with a combination of halon and Inergen gases. As the former Beinecke head of access services told the Yale Daily News in 2010, this combination of gases is safe, but it reduces oxygen levels slightly. Halon gas is safe for humans but has been manufactured in the US since 1998 because it contributes to the depletion of ozone.
Related: A way forward on climate change: focus on reducing carbon emissions from heavy industry
The Beinecke rewired the system in its $ 73 million renovation in 2016. In the event of a fire, the library is now flooding the stacks with a greener chemical, ECARO-25. Extensive toxicity tests have proven that the gas is safe for humans, according to an EPA report.
Cleaners like these are widespread and are also used to protect computers, partly because the gases can reach small computer parts where electric sparks can burn.
Related: Late library book? Too many libraries are running overdue fees amid the economic crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic
Although Fitzgerald prefers visitors to know the truth about the library’s security systems, she said the myth was a useful educational tool.
‘It’s a fun story, but I think the truth is more interesting and useful to convey. “People may not realize that cultural heritage institutions like ours are complicated and expensive to maintain, and that they serve an important purpose,” she said. “This material will be here in 100, 200, 300 years, and it’s probably because of all the precautions we’re putting in place.”
Our rating: false
Based on our research, the claim that Yale’s Beinecke Library would remove all oxygen from the building in the event of a fire is FALSE. Although it once used a carbon dioxide-based fire suppression system that reduced the amount of oxygen in the stacks, which could potentially cause adverse health consequences, there has never been a system that could kill those inside the building. The library’s current emergency plan floods the stacks with ECARO-25, which is environmentally friendly and can be used safely by humans.
Our sources for fact checking:
- The Yale University Library Gazette, April 1964, THE BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY: A Statement by the Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
- United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 2001, “Standards and Codes of Practice to Eliminate Halons Dependence”
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000, “Carbon Dioxide as a Fire: Investigating the Risks”
- Yale Daily News, February 4, 2010, “Myths abound about Beinecke”
- Fire Suppression Systems Association, visited on February 10: “What are special hazards for fire protection?”
- The Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2016, “Yale Reopens Its Renovated Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library”
- Tweet by user Michael-Vincent D’Anella-Mercanti, 12 November 2018
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe here to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica.
Our fact-checking work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.