Anyone who collects older books, or who has browsed a bookstore with lots of older titles (or a library stocked with older books), well recalls the characteristic mustiness of the bookshelves.
For many, this is a very comforting smell, since it speaks to the survival of books despite everything that's stacked against them (no pun intended): things like fires, floods, wars, and simple neglect (benign or otherwise). However, some book collectors, as well as most professional librarians, view this smell somewhat differently, since it speaks to the fact that such books are deteriorating on a daily basis:
As books age, the paper on which they are printed begins to emit a mixture of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOC). This odor is especially noticeable in books printed from roughly 1850-1990. Books printed during this period were printed on paper made from wood pulp (rather than the rag fibers used in previous centuries), and such paper usually was saturated with rosin to make it better capable of receiving an inked impression (a topic we touched on briefly in our post of 17 July 2009). Lignin, a major component of wood pulp, yellows with age. And rosin eventually breaks down into corrosive, acidic byproducts (paper previously had been sized with gelatin, which is a more neutral product).
Traditionally, diagnosing the rapidity with which books are degrading required that paper actually be removed from a book and tested. Now, however, word comes from the peer-reviewed journal Analytic Chemistry (a publication of the American Chemical Society) of a non-destructive test that will achieve the same end, material degradomics. Material degradomics links "a book’s physical state to its corresponding VOC emissions pattern."
The more quickly at-risk books can be identified, the more quickly steps can be undertaken to halt and (perhaps) reverse such deterioration....
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