What’s that smell?
There are lots of good reasons to buy used textbooks — they’re cheaper and if the former user was a good student, the most important passages are already highlighted.
But that “used book smell” isn’t something I remember as a plus. Pizza-smudged fingerprints, dried splashes of coffee or worse. That’s what I remember.
Apparantly there are students who like the musty scents that come from some old books. At least that’s what e-book seller CafeScribe says. They commissioned a Zogby poll that found 43 percent of college students find smell — either new book smell or old — as the thing they most love about books as physical objects.
To meet that need, while peddling their own electronic products, CafeScribe says it will now send a scratch and sniff sticker with every purchase of an e-textbook. The scent: musty old book.
I guess that’s better than perfume de Bud Light or aroma Ramen noodles.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
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I guess they couldn’t capture “Desperate Midnight Cramming” in a scratch and sniff!