Smell a book at the Bodley

Prompted by a podcast today, which reminded me of our visit to the Bodleian Library in Oxford last October.

Later this year (Covid willing) the Bodley will host "Sensational Books", an exhibition about the sensory characteristics, and particularly the smell, of old books. Visitors will be able to smell the Magna Carta, and the First Folio, for example.

Apparently this is not a joke. It is a project of the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), which applies new digital technologies to the preservation and reconstruction of rare and ephemeral objects. Their signature project to date is the reconstruction of the Palmyra Arch, destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

If only we could blip smells!