Written By: Ivey Ingalls-Rubin, Staff Writer

Old books are known to bear a glorious smell within their pages. It truly makes any book nerd weak at the knees. During an interview with The Telegraph, Matija Strlic described that beautiful smell as “A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness, this unmistakable smell is as much a part of the book as its contents.”

The secret to this scent lies within the hundreds of volatile organic compounds that are a part of the books pages, ink and adhesive. It is with time that these compounds break down and release the smell into their environment. When different materials are used in manufacturing the books, their scents become altered.

For example, the hint of vanilla comes from Lignin—a polymer that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit. Lignin is closely related to vanillin. When it is used in creating paper and stored for years it breaks down and smells good. Another organic compound that is used is called benzaldehyde, which is reported to give the air a hint of almond. In addition to the ingredients used in putting the book together, a book may also retain hints of its journey through history, such as smoke, water damage or even perfumes trapped within its spine.

Knowing why paper smells as good as it does is merely a fun fact. However, if put into the right hands it may be used to aid librarians in “sniffing out” which books are in danger of degradation. Or it may be that the smell of secondhand bookstores was arranged to subliminally install a hunger for knowledge in us all.

To read about the research behind this please visit HERE.