Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey Brainstuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam here with another classic episode from our archives.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about scent again, this time the complex
Speaker 1: scent of libraries and the complex science of cataloging and
Speaker 1: conserving the sense of places. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog
Speaker 1: Obam Here. If you're like me, you love the smell
Speaker 1: of old fashioned analog paper books, old books, new books,
Speaker 1: and researchers at University College London suggests that these scents
Speaker 1: aren't just nice, they're an important part of the human experience.
Speaker 1: In an extensive study of smells heritage and historic paper
Speaker 1: published in the journal Heritage Science, the authors argue the
Speaker 1: importance of documenting and preserving smells, but why. The researchers
Speaker 1: realized that visitors at St. Paul's Cathedral, Dean and Chapter
Speaker 1: Library in London frequently comment on the arome of the space,
Speaker 1: saying they feel like they can smell history thanks to
Speaker 1: our limbic system. Odors can make us pretty emotional, especially
Speaker 1: when they evoke memories. Sense affect how we experience different
Speaker 1: cultures and places, and help us gain more insight into
Speaker 1: and engage more deeply with the past. The researchers posit
Speaker 1: that smells are part of our cultural heritage and have
Speaker 1: historical value and deserve to be identified, analyzed, and archived
Speaker 1: using chemical analysis and sensory descriptions. The study authors set
Speaker 1: about figuring out a way for scientists and historians to
Speaker 1: do so. In one experiment, the researchers asked visitors at
Speaker 1: the historic library to characterize the odors they smelled. More
Speaker 1: than seventy percent of respondents considered the library smell as pleasant.
Speaker 1: All of the visitors thought it smelled woody, while noticed
Speaker 1: a smokey aroma. Sevent reported an earthy scent, and forty
Speaker 1: one percent said they smelled vanilla. Other less frequent responses
Speaker 1: ranged from musty, too pungent, and floral to in sid
Speaker 1: In another experiment, the study authors analyzed the responses of
Speaker 1: seventy nine visitors to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Speaker 1: UK to the smell of a historic book from a
Speaker 1: second hand bookstore. To capture the book smell, a piece
Speaker 1: of sterile gauze was soaked in five milli leaders of
Speaker 1: an extract of the book odor and placed in an
Speaker 1: unlabeled metal canister screwed shut to prevent visitors from peaking
Speaker 1: the top three responses when the visitors were prompted to
Speaker 1: describe the smell chocolate, coffee, and old. The team then
Speaker 1: analyzed the volatile organic compounds in the book and the library.
Speaker 1: Most odors are composed of these v o c s,
Speaker 1: which are chemicals that evaporate at low temperatures. VOCs are
Speaker 1: often associated with certain smell types, for example, acetic acid
Speaker 1: smells sour, isoamal acetate smells like bananas. Using the data
Speaker 1: from the chemical analysis and visitors smell descriptions, the researchers
Speaker 1: created the Historic Book Odor Wheel to document an archive
Speaker 1: the Historic library. Smell main categories such as sweet or
Speaker 1: spicy fill the inner circle of the wheel. Descriptors such
Speaker 1: as caramel or biscuits fill the middle, and the chemical
Speaker 1: compounds likely to be the smelly source, like for ferral,
Speaker 1: fill the outer circle. The researchers want the Book Odor
Speaker 1: Wheel to be an interdisciplinary tool that untrained noses can
Speaker 1: use to identify smells and the compounds causing them, which
Speaker 1: could address conservators concerns about material composition and degradation inform
Speaker 1: artifact paper conservation decisions, and benefit ole factory museum experiences.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article researchers create odor
Speaker 1: wheel that breaks down the smell of old books on
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com, written by Shelley Danzy. Bring Stuff's
Speaker 1: production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works
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