I'm convinced that my olfactory glands guided me into the field of librarianship. Every Wednesday night when I was a kid my family would drive five blocks to visit the Cody Branch of the Flint Public Library. Thirty years later I had the privilege of administering that very same library, but it had moved several times. When I was a child it was located inside Cody School, a block long two story red brick building built in the 1920s just as the automotive factories in Flint started to boom. Upon entering the school through thick wooden doors you found the library immediately on your right. It was absurdly quiet by today's standards, the lighting incandescently bright, and the librarian stern and matriarchal. What I remember the most about Cody was the addictive smell of the books. The scent of paper mingled with the tangy smell of ink combined with years of shelf life. I've always loved the smell of reading!
Twenty years later as I was casting about for a career I was fortunate enough to be present when a fellow history major at the University of Michigan Flint announced that she had decided to go to library school. I experienced a classic light bulb effect. Since memory and smell are so closely linked I'm sure that my positive reaction to librarianship was partially caused by the release of Cody Library odor particles that had been stored in my brain synapses for over twenty-five years.
I have to admit though that I am annoyed that seemingly innocuous influences, like the smell of books, can have an enormous impact on our lives. Just this past weekend I saw a magazine cover that portrayed a couple embracing. A word bubble over the woman's head stated, "Oh no, we have chemistry." The article addressed the chemical components of attraction, exploring the possibility that love may be just a cauldron of chemical reactions. So I've been wondering lately what career path I would have traversed if I had grown up in a world of Sony and Kindle ebook readers; if I had grown up reading but not smelling books.
I've had a chance to play with the Sony ebook reader and it's a lot of fun and very functional. I was particularly surprised by the tactile sensation I experienced. It felt like a book! The recently released Amazon Kindle sold out its entire stock within the first five hours it was offered. Its wireless interface means that you connect directly to Amazon's Whispernet network (Sprint) to download books, blogs, and magazines. Unfortunately neither the Sony nor the Kindle are scent enhanced.
I'm not going to offer any reviews of the Sony or Kindle, because the blogosphere is bursting with reviews, forums, chats, wikis, podcasts, and videos describing and explaining every nuance of the devices. I enjoy digital media and I imagine that I will like the Kindle whenever I get my hands on one. Public libraries need to be acutely aware that our patrons are rapidly embracing digital media. Still, companies realize that people like the smell of books. After a poll found that 43 percent of students identified smell as the quality they most liked about books, the e-textbook site cafescribe.com started sending a scratch and sniff sticker with a musty "old book" smell to everyone who downloaded an ebook. Digital media is fun and convenient once you become comfortable with the technology. I just wonder about the scores of gamer kids IMing, and playing Halo, while listening to the "Kottonmouth Kings" on their iPod nanos. Would they have become librarians rather than game designers and programmers if they had the chance to inhale some musty books at their local Library?
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