Diversity and dynamics of the bacterial population resident in books from a public library

Bacteria presence in books proved to be a source of concern in dissemination of pathogens, and books are considered important vectors of diseases. We used high-throughput sequencing and culture-depending approaches to survey the bacterial diversity of books from a public library over 3 months (July, August and September). Antibiogram and pathogenicity tests were also done. We found differences between bacterial communities, both in their numbers and in their diversity. Gammaproteobacteria dominate the samples of August and September and Bacilli dominates the July sampling. Bacillus sp. is the predominant genus in July sampling; Staphylococcus sp. dominates August sampling and Acinetobacter sp. and Burkholderia sp. dominate September sampling. The nine isolated bacteria were resistant to antibiotics and four have pathogenic factors, including Bacillus cereus and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The data shown here suggest that the dynamics of the bacterial community present in books is complex and may be a fertile field for future research.The implications of these findings were discussed.