To date, it has been little more than a fad practised in quirky corners of the literature-loving world. Now the idiosyncratic ritual of book-sniffing is to be used scientifically to prevent future damage to texts at the University of Cambridge.

Researchers in the University Library are testing the same gases that give old books their comforting smell to work out which of its millions of volumes are most at risk of decay.

The work is part of a wider research project, involving all six legal deposit libraries in the UK and Ireland. It has been funded with a grant worth more than £340,000 from the Andrew Mellon foundation, one of the largest grants ever for library and archive conservation research.

The aim is to improve the way the books are stored and, if possible, develop an early warning system that will alert the librarians when decaying books begin to produce significant quantities of destructive acids.

When books start to decompose, they emit a complex mixture of organic compounds, including volatile acids, which then further contribute to their degradation. The same emissions cause the musty smell beloved of habitual “book-sniffers”.

By sampling the air in different parts of the library, researchers hope to identify the areas with a high acid content, so that the books can be treated before handling and damage cause further decay. The theory is that even a modern text will degrade faster if it is stored in an area with older, “smellier” books.

“Environmental conditions clearly play a major role in the preservation of paper-based materials,” Alan Farrant, Head of Conservation at the University Library said. “This project, which will research the effect of environmental conditions on such materials, will benefit the Library in that it will provide us with the knowledge to improve environmental and storage conditions across the Library as a whole.”

The project is split into two parts. During the first stage, which is already underway, researchers are comparing copies of the same texts in different libraries, to see how the various ways in which they have been stored might have affected their condition. From this, staff in the University Library will be able to conjecture exactly what effect their unique policy of storing two million books – about a quarter of the total collection – on open shelves has had.

During the second part of the investigation, members of the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde will sample the air in different parts of the library, measuring the quantity of acid that is being produced.

There are no plans to change the library's open stacks policy, however. Because they are freely able to browse the books, users visit not only for purposes of research, but for inspiration. Resident and visiting academics simply cannot find a similar open access service elsewhere. Staff would like to retain it, but equally they need to develop an effective way of monitoring the books' condition.

The results of the study are due to be published in 2009. The conservators involved are already predicting ways of reducing acid in storage, including specific filters in the air conditioning which could remove organic materials in the atmosphere. That, however, could also prove controversial for those who love nothing more than to sniff a good book, because it would make the smell of the old library a thing of the past.

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