The Purple Streak asked:
What causes old books to have such a characteristic smell? Is it a bacteria that attacks the paper? Should I freeze my dear CRC Handbook?
Hilarie
Yes, you got it. Though it's often the binding and glues that are being digested, not the pages themselves. A story I heard as an undergraduate was that the trustees of Harvard were on a tour of the newly-opened off-site storage facility for University library overflow. (There had been much arguing over building it in the first place -- it meant infrequently- used books would have 24-hour turnaround instead of being immediately available on campus, and many people didn't seem to care that "infrequently-used" generally meant "not checked out since the late 1800s".) Anyway, the story goes that the curator had shown them all the climate- and atmosphere-controlled storage technologies, and as the crusty old trustees were getting to the end of their tour, one of them harrumphed, "Well, I still don't like it. It doesn't *smell* like a library!" The curator turned on him with teeth bared: "That, sir, is the smell of ROTTING BOOKS!" --Michael Kleber kleber@brandeis.edu