Scientists nose out clue to preserving books: their smell  The
complex perfume of ageing books has been broken down into its
component chemicals by research that could assist conservators
Dusty books A little heavy on the vanilla, maybe? ... Dusty
books on a shell. Photograph: Getty  The dusty smell of old
books is one of the joys of visiting secondhand bookshops, and
now scientists, who have identified it as combining "grassy
notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an
underlying mustiness", hope it can be used to help preserve
valuable ageing titles.  Researcher Matija Strlic, from
University College London's Centre for Sustainable Heritage,
decided to investigate the smell of old books after spotting a
book expert sniffing a title to assess its age. "I noticed a
conservator once who was smelling paper to assess its quality –
and having seen that and knowing that the analysis of food aroma
is a routine analytical problem, I decided to look for
correlations between paper composition and its smel