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Scratch-n-Sniff 'Old Book Smell' for E-Books

by Terrence O'Brien on August 24, 2007 at 05:26 PM

Scratch-n-Sniff 'Old Book Smell' for Digital BooksWe're fans of good old tactility, feedback and honest to goodness sensation -- all commodities in today's increasingly digital world. That why it's always been hard for us to jump on the e-book bandwagon. Digital versions of books stored on computer-like readers lack any pages to turn or binding to break in. They certainly lack that musty aroma you soak in when cracking open an older book, which may be more important to the overall reading experience than most of us realize. After all, smell is the sense most closely tied our memory sensors.

But now, e-textbook-peddler CafeScribe is working on a solution. Beginning in September, every e-textbook purchased through the newly-launched service will include a scratch-n-sniff sticker that smells like a musty old book. The gimmick is part of a slightly bizarre attempt to woo students and universities to its e-textbooks and away from traditional paper. In a survey of 600 college students, CafeScribe found that 43 percent identified smell as the thing they most love about books as physical objects, while 30 percent associated "mustiness" with the books they most loved.

Though certainly a marketing gimmick, this is an entertaining marriage of old and new technology, and one we'd love to see packaged with more of our digital goods. Imagine if a new song downloaded from iTunes smelled like the unwrapping a new cassette tape?

From Engadget

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Tags: cafescribe, e books, e-books, EBooks, scratch n sniff, scratch-n-sniff, ScratchNSniff

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