SMELLBOOK REFERENCE · SB-0008
Old Book
Permanent ID: smellbook: · updated 2026-10-06, revision 5
Character EDITORIAL
An old book smells dry, papery and faintly sweet, with a warm woody note and a soft, dusty edge.
Words: paper, dry, woody, dusty. Families: Temperature and texture, Wood, earth and stone, Animal, material and lived-in.
States: aged (VERIFIED). A state says how an entry is met, such as wet, aged or roasted. It does not create a new smell, and it adds no scientific fact by itself: states marked EDITORIAL come from the entry's own records, and only those marked VERIFIED are reported by a VERIFIED claim.
Met in: Library, Bookstore.
Evidence
Scientific evidence
- Old-book aroma and paper degradation volatiles (CLM-OLDBOOK-001). Matija Strlič et al., Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books, Analytical Chemistry, 2009.
- Documenting the smell of historic books (CLM-HISTORICBOOK-001). Cecilia Bembibre & Matija Strlič, Smell of heritage: a framework for the identification, analysis and archival of historic odours, Heritage Science, 2017.
- Known volatile degradation products of paper (CLM-OLDBOOK-002). Matija Strlič et al., Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books, Analytical Chemistry, 2009.
Molecules named in these claims: acetic acid, furfural. A molecule listed here is named in a VERIFIED claim about this smell. It is not presented as the cause of the smell; each claim says what its source supports.
Cite
SmellBook. (2026). Old Book (revision 5, 2026-10-06). SmellBook Public Atlas. smellbook:smell:old-book. https://smellbook.com/smells/old-book
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