Studies on Indoor Air Quality in the Repositories of the National Library and Archives of Egypt

Microbiological contamination with fungi and bacteria can pose a significant destroy to old manuscripts or health hazard to those working in archives or library. Quantitative analysis revealed air microbiological contamination with moulds ranged from 15.72-369.45 cfu x103 /m3 of air, while bacteria ranged from 94.35-660.48 cfu x103 /m3. The air sample analysis yielded 2917.08 fungal colonies classified into 7 genera of which Penicillium spp. (20.22%), Aspergillus flavus (20.76%), Trichoderma viride (12.94%), Alternaria tenuis (10.79%) and Aspergillus niger (10.51%) were the main contaminating mould of all tested repositories and they together constituted 54.42% of the total airspora. Aspergillus flavus and Penicillium spp. were the dominant component in the indoor air with a total concentration of 605.48 and 589.74 cfux102 /m3 with frequency occurrence of 20.76 and 20.22% respectively. Its highest concentration was recorded in August (259.49 and 314.53cfu x103 /m3) and the lowest during winter in January (141.54 and 125.81 cfux103 /m3) respectively. The obtained data showed that, of the 53 fungal isolates screened for cellulolytic activity on carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) only 31 (58.49%) had the ability to grow. Moreover, only 12 out off 31fungal isolates had a high ability to decompose CMC in Czepek's medium. All essential oil tested materials were found to highly effective and gave 100% reduction in the growth of F. oxysporum and T. viride fungi at the higher concentration of 0.4%. The Tea tree essential oil was most effective against F. oxysporum responsible for 65.3 mean % inhibition followed by Anise essential oil responsible for 63.2 mean% inhibition without significant difference. While, Rocket essential oil was the most effective against T. viride responsible for 70.4 mean % inhibition