To the Editor:

Re “Trying to Pin Down the Smell of History” (news article, March 4):

The effort by Columbia University and the Morgan Library & Museum to record scents in old books and associated objects is a worthy project.

As an antiquarian bookseller, whenever I pick up an old book, I sniff it. This draws the occasional odd look, but few scents are more pleasing than the fragrance of a well-aged book, whereas excessive mustiness can harm a volume and permeate a library.

Some scents add monetary value as well as historical interest. A dictionary owned by Mark Twain still had a distinct aroma of tobacco in its pages. Twain, of course, was an incessant smoker of cigars and pipes. There were even white hairs in the book, evidently his as well. Collectors pay a premium for marginal notes in an author’s hand; why not for his DNA?

Even new books have a pleasing savor of paper and ink. With acid-free paper and sturdy jackets they should age well — perhaps too well for the antiquarian in me. Editing out all aging is not necessarily a good thing, in books or in people.