Why do old books smell?That old book smell brings back so many memories, but what creates that smell?

May 2, 2012 - 1:03pm — Lee Hadden

Every time I catch a whiff of that special old books smell, I am transported through time and space to the cool welcoming basement of The Strand Bookstore in New York City, where I spent many hot humid summer afternoons, searching for some used book I've never seen nor even heard of, or sitting on the cold concrete floor, reading. The smell of old books isn't pleasant, exactly, but it is unmistakable -- and powerfully evocative.

"A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness," writes an international team of chemists from University College London (UCL) and the University of Ljubljana (UL) in Slovenia in their scientific paper (doi:10.1021/ac9016049).

"[T]his unmistakable smell is as much part of the book as its contents."

But what is the source of that smell?